THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410020042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
Capt. Henry Pascale was, if anything, an independent.
He learned to fly when few others knew how. He helped William ``Billy'' Mitchell lay the foundation of today's Air Force in 1923. And when insurance companies refused to cover him as he flew into his senior years, the captain underwrote himself.
He made emergency landings in farmer's fields from western Pennsylvania to Northern Virginia. He flew solo cross-country at age 72 after his partner-to-be got cold feet.
And when he fell in love with a swampy, mosquito-infested airstrip in Hampton Roads, Virginia, he bought it.
For local pilots, this boggy clearing was heaven. Hangar rent was ridiculously low, gas was cheap and the camaraderie was warm. No control tower here. Simply hop in your plane, taxi to the runway, check the skies and take off.
Capt. Pascale, who died in 1990, wanted it that way. The cost and hassles of flying, he often said, should never get in the way of someone's desire for flight.
That simple airstrip is now the privately owned Hampton Roads Airport. And after years of serving as an aviation oasis, it's for sale.
Pascale's two daughters never had their father's passion for flight. Still, they want the airport to remain intact.
But with this region hungering for raw land, it is unclear whether the captain's playground will retain its quaint charm.
Hampton Roads Airport, in a 1,200-acre clearing next to westbound traffic on U.S. Route 58 in both Chesapeake and Suffolk, has been shopped for several months.
Officially, it's always been for sale, but aggressive marketing efforts have not been made until now.
The asking price? Between $2.5 million and $3 million, according to Jeff Kohlman, senior associate with FBO Resource Group Inc. of Denver, Colo., a firm advising Pascale's daughters on the sale.
The market for airports today is tough. Few buyers want to continue operating one. Most want the raw land. That is what makes this sale so unique.
Hampton Roads Airport is, according to Kohlman, a ``solvent entity,'' though it hasn't been making money hand-over-fist, he said.
It has undergone recent renovations to its north-south runway and installed a new taxiway and apron where planes can be stored. Plans for a renovated east-west runway are on hold.
The 510 acres that are used as an airport will be sold. A cadre of about 138 aircraft was based there last year. The family is not actively marketing the remaining 690 acres surrounding the airport, but it could be sold as well.
Hampton Roads Airport has been designated a reliever airport for overflow traffic at Norfolk International Airport.
It is in the list of the top five busiest airports of any type in Virginia, according to the state Department of Aviation.
Gov. George F. Allen frequently lands there when he visits the area.
So far, there have been only a few nibbles, Kohlman said. But with Interstate 664 and U.S. Route 58 nearby, and with the adjoining land available around the airport, Hampton Roads Airport has potential to become a major corporate and general aviation hub.
Should that occur, traffic would increase, hangar prices would surely rise and a piece of a simpler past could disappear.
Such possibilities don't worry old-timers such as Russell Page, who has been flying out of Hampton Roads Airport for about 14 years.
He is president of the local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association.
``Change is inevitable,'' he said. ``But if you're able to go with the swing and sway of it, it'll probably remain the same.''
Page and a handful of regulars meet every day at noon at Joe Mathias' gray hangar, one of several nondescript buildings at Hampton Roads Airport.
They then drive to lunch at Bunny's Family Restaurant in Suffolk or Frank's Truck Stop in Bowers Hill.
During a recent day on which meatloaf was the special at Bunny's, the men's table had 146 combined years of experience flying out of Hampton Roads. Some were there from the beginning.
Mathias, a retired pilot for Piedmont Airlines, spends his days in a hangar filled with the pieces of a 1936 cabin Waco (pronounced ``wacko'').
The aircraft has been stripped of its dark blue fabric skin to reveal a beautiful Sitka spruce skeleton. Mathias is refurbishing the entire plane by hand using specialized wood and meticulous care.
His wife makes the wing ribs, each as light as a small notebook.
In a loft nearby, an exact replica of the 1903 Wright brother's Kitty Hawk is stored, disassembled.
``There's a lot of history here,'' Mathias said. ``Right now, we've got a place we can afford and the liberty to fly that we want. This place has never been a moneymaker, but it's never been a flashy operation either.''
Capt. Pascale began flying when before World War I he joined what was then the Army Air Corps. He was attending law school at the University of Nebraska when the war broke out.
His passion for flight blossomed there.
On Sept. 5, 1923, Pascale was one of several hundred pilots who left Cape Hatteras with Brig. Gen. William ``Billy'' Mitchell and demonstrated how air power would change the face of warfare.
They dropped twin 1,100-pound bombs and sank a pair of obsolete battleships, the Virginia and New Jersey.
Fran Sykes, the 53-year-old daughter of Capt. Pascale, once asked her father about the famous bombing raid.
``He said: `Ah yeah. We flew the big bombers.' And that was about it,'' Sykes said.
``That was not something that he was especially proud of. That was not one of the stories he would tell. The stories he usually told were about getting out of sticky situations.''
Capt. Pascale retired from the Army Air Corps at the end of the 1930s, settling in New Jersey with his family.
He spent half of every year in Newport News, where he stayed with relatives. When he ventured south, he'd land at a muddy airstrip in the middle of nowhere between Portsmouth and Suffolk.
Sometime in the 1950s, the airport went up for sale and Pascale bought it.
``I think he bought it because he could never resist a bargain - a good bargain,'' said Donald Sykes, Fran's husband. ``It was like you play baseball and you have a chance to buy Yankee Stadium. . . .''
``Yeah,'' Fran said, ``or maybe it's more like the Portland Sea Dogs. I don't think it was Yankee's Stadium.''
``I remember being there with my dad,'' Fran Sykes said, ``and as we came into the airport, there were three or four motorcycles with girls on the back having drag races on the tarmac.''
Pascale gently ran then off.
``He simply explained to them,'' she said, ``that this was an airport.''
Then there's the story about the still.
After being tailed and stopped by police, Pascale learned that his manager had been making moonshine at the airport and flying it to North Carolina.
Pascale stopped flying when he was in his 80s.
``In the end, when he was flying, he'd just take off, circle a couple of times, and come down,'' Fran said.
His last flight was witnessed by a member of the airport's ground crew, who said Pascale hopped in his plane without checking a thing, and flew.
When he returned to the ground, he got out of his cockpit, left the plane and immediately put it up for sale.
``Maybe it just stopped being fun,'' Fran said. ``I don't really know.''
Now, as the family looks for a buyer, the memories return.
``It is tough to sell,'' Fran said. ``But we're selling for the sake of the people at the airport and his love of aviation.''
Although it might be easier to sell the raw land, Fran said it would be wrong. The airport is too important.
``Does the world want another Wal-Mart or tract housing or a drag-racing field?'' she asked. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
Joe Mathias, a retired Piedmont Airlines pilot, spends his days in a
hangar filled with the pieces of a 1936 cabin Waco. The plane has
been stripped of its dark blue fabric skin to reveal a beautiful
Sitka spruce skeleton. Mathias is refurbishing the plane.
Photo
Pascale
Map
STAFF
Photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
A small experimental plane sits in the shade of a hangar at Hampton
Roads Airport. Outside in the background is a World War II C-60
Lockheed Lodestar owned by the Confederate Air Force. After years of
serving as an aviation oasis, the airport is for sale.
by CNB