(This is a very long story and you might only should bother reading the first paragraph or so that relates to some EPNG history... I apologize for being long winded - but I blame it partly on my father and partly on the fact that I have a degree in of all things Mass Communications from UTEP and it seems the Mass part explains why I am so verbose... well, and the fact that my dad was a good storyteller and it must have rubbed off on me at an early age. But, I have a video that some of you might recognize some scenes specific to Farmington. The scenes go by fast, but at around 35 seconds into my video are aerial shots of the EPNG facility near Farmington...) https://youtube/watch?v=o9i44yMgQ6o My father (Roy Brooks) was a pilot for EPNG, starting first in Salt Lake City in 1957 (we were from El Paso) and he transferred back to El Paso in 1958. When I was a kid in El Paso, my dad would often come back home and tell me stories where he had been flying airplanes to for EPNG. And to make it even more interesting to his young son, he shot 8mm films of a lot of these places and also showed them to me as he was telling stories. (Boy, did I get hooked into cameras and airplanes at an early age!) I was a lucky kiddo (brat) to be able to ride in some of the airplanes back then and in fact, my dad gave me my first lessons in a Beechcraft Twin Bonanza Excalibur that EPNG had at the airport in El Paso. My father retired from EPNG in the late 70s and at that time was flying the Grumman G2 into Europe and Algeria on several occasions and a Sabreliner jet (his favorite) a couple of Lear Jets and a Falcon Jet, all of which were based in El Paso. EPNG also had a B-25 that was converted into a corporate airplane, but they didnt keep that one very long. It was a pain having to crawl under the wind inside the fuselage into the cockpit. EPNG also had a twin engine airplane that was called a LodeStar. It sounded SO COOL with those big radial engines. He also flew a Cessna 210 and a Beechcraft Baron. My father was an Army Air Corp Instructor Pilot during WW2 and told me Son, if I could teach Yankees from New York City - who didnt even know how to drive cars - how to fly an airplane, I can teach you how to fly this 800 horsepower Beechcraft. As a youngster getting to fly with my dad, and hauling an occasional engineer or someone needing a lift to a compressor station from EP, I got to see a lot of the EPNG territory and some of my favorite memories are flights we had to Farmington, NM. Not too terribly long ago, I flew my airplane (yep, I eventually got a license... some kids grow up in the country and learn how to ride a horse at an early age... and some kids grew up nearly on an airport and learned how to fly) and I took a sentimental journey in my Cessna covering a big chunk of the EPNG area. In my video here, about 35 seconds into it is an aerial photo of what I recalled as a kiddo back in the late 50s and early 60s as the EPNG facility just a tad south and east it seemed of the airport at Farmington. Right after that are some scenes of Shiprock. The first time I saw Shiprock was from N4211D (the tail number on that 800 horsepower Beechcraft) and as my dad flew close to it (well, close in a 12 year old kids brain that is) it scared the devil out of me. Also, landing at the airport in Farmington was a scary thing too, because as you are approaching the airport in an airplane, going from East to West, there is a rather abrupt ridge right before you get to the runway. Scared the dickens out of me each time I went to Farmington thinking we would smack into that tall ridge. For me to go back to Farmington in 2011 retracing some of this adventures I had in my youth to EPNG locations was a great thrill for me as I turned 60 years old. I had just lost my dad about 8 months earlier and I wanted to fly myself back to some of those places we flew to in the EPNG Twin Bonaza to include a stop in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I cant remember exactly why EPNG had trips to Las Vegas, NM but I suspect they were developing something in that part of New Mexico, perhaps gathering lines if my memory serves me correct. They ate at the Hillcrest Restaurant in Las Vegas as I also recall. My dad earned his pilots license in El Paso in the late 30s as part of his compensation for working at the airport as the Airport Foreman. While he was there, his best friend (also gaining his pilots license too) soon left El Paso and headed to California where they signed on with the Army Air Corp to become instructor pilots and where they received training on how to teach cadets how to fly. My father and his best friend Don met two young ladies who were sisters at Gibbs Field in Fort Stockton where they were teaching cadets. They married these two girls and Don became my uncle as I came into this world. My very long flight from Texas to Washington State (where my uncle Don relocated many years ago) was to visit him as he entered a nursing home. I had hoped that once I was there, it would have been possible that my uncle could be loaded in one of the vans the facility had so that he could travel to the airport where I had my Cessna parked, and that we might be able to sit outside and recall stories from his and my dads days at Gibbs Field in Fort Stockton. Sadly, by the time I was able to get to Washington, he was in too poor of health to go to the airport and we visited for several days in the facility he was in. My father had passed away four years earlier and Don had been such a wonderful friend of his and a terrific uncle to me, and when I got back to Texas he passed away two weeks later. Long story made short, I was fortunate to be an EPNG Brat, going back to the late 50s because in some ways, I think EPNG must have invented :Take Your Son or Daughter To Work long before anyone even came up with that concept. It was a great place for many of us who had parents who worked there, and when I was able to fly with my dad to the compressor stations (it seemed like we were typically hauling up a part someone at the station needed in a big hurry, or we were flying an engineer or plant employee... I got to go on several of those runs... That was probably the best part of being a kid in the 50s and 60s and being a part of that very big EPNG family... Those were indeed the good old days. Somewhere on my computer, I have footage of the El Paso Paul Kayser as it made the maiden voyage from Algeria to Elba Island, Georgia. I worked in Houston in 1978 for the El Paso Company in John McFalls area in Public Relations (Gosh I miss John!) I was sent from Houston to shoot film of the arrival and bring it back and process it for the board of directors to see. (By the way, Luke Warm is a name I use here on Facebook only now that I have turned into an old hermit on a ranch here in Texas and I spend my days with a mess of goats and my little burro named Pablo who protects them. Pablo thinks I am The Skipper and he is Gilligan and on most days I enjoy hanging out with Pablo, except when he is being a jackass and tries to bite my elbow because he wants more peppermints. ) Anyway, this video retraces a lot of EPNG areas that I flew with my father many years ago, and I suggest not going past 50 seconds or so, because it gets way up north in a hurry. Adios, Plata Rios (what my Spanish speaking friends called me in El Paso about 50 years ago...)
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 06:15:24 +0000
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