southern Florida’s first gliderport on 60 acres
of land below Miami in 1945. (A newspaper
clipping Compton kept from the Miami News
of yesteryear shows a picture of his father
with a tongue-in-cheek cutline: “He soared
to new heights with peanut butter and jelly
for fuel.”)
Burt Compton has flown 51 different
types of gliders at more than 80 sites around
the world. Kathie and Burt also have a musi-
cal avocation – they’re part of the Moondogs
“oldies” band, which frequently plays at
Padre’s in Marfa.
Burt compares soaring to chess and engine-
powered flying to checkers. In gliding, as in
chess, he said, “there’s more than one choice
or option, a bunch of right options, but which
is the most correct?” Plus, he added, it’s time-
consuming – “it’s like playing a musical instru-
ment, you have to learn the scales; it’s some-
thing you can’t learn quickly. It takes time to
learn, to become one with the aircraft.”
“It’s like a fly fisherman,” he suggests.
“On a lake in Minnesota he takes you out
and says, ‘cast there,’ and you get a fish. He’s
so finely tuned to the look of the water, a rip-
ple. In my mind I’m looking for this image of
a bird.” He even wears orange blue-blocker
glasses to better read the clouds.
Gliding is relatively safe – so safe that the
FAA allows 14-year-olds to fly gliders solo,
while in most states they must wait until
they’re 16 to drive automobiles.
Experienced glider pilots have made cross-
country flights of more than 1,000 miles and
have even achieved speeds of 120 miles per
hour, the Soaring Society of America reports.
Marfa attracts glider pilots year-round and in
the fall particularly from the northern states,
after temperatures begin to plummet there but
can still be warm in Marfa.
An economics impact study issued in
2011 by the University of North Texas for
the Texas Department of Transportation’s
Aviation Division states that in 2010 the
Marfa airport employed 19 people, with
salary, wages and benefits of $385,644, and
accounted for economic activity of
$1,163,862.
Compton said he believes Marfa residents
and others in the Big Bend area have learned
to value glider activities at the airport now,
when earlier some people thought it was ‘just
for the rich cats.”
Presidio County, he said, owns the airport
fuel tanks, and visitors who come to fly in the
gliders – “lots of glider pilots from Houston
come out here frequently” – or take soaring
lessons will be eating at local restaurants,
overnighting at motels or hotels and shop-
ping at local stores.
Ronnie Lewis, who has worked at the air-
port since about 1955 and still is employed
there, along with his son and grandson,
recalled a Big Bend Now article last year
explaining how during the post-war era
there was great enthusiasm from locals to
learn to pilot a plane – because back then the
GI bill would finance the instruction.
“At that point in time a poor boy could
buy an airplane and learn to fly,” he
recalled. “The price of the aircraft, the price
of the fuel, the price of the instruction was
such that the average working man could
afford an aircraft.” Lessons then cost $4 an
hour for the airplane and $2 for the pilot-
instructor; a two-seater plane cost abut $300
and gas was 18 cents per gallon, he said.
Lewis still sells aviation fuel at the airport,
but it now costs $5.80 a gallon. The price of a
two-seater glider starts at $10,000 these days,
and a single-engine airplane starts at $20,000.
The glider business now accounts for 80
percent use of the Marfa airport. And visitors
who take a glider flight are likely to rave about
what they’ve seen from the air, saying that it
accentuates their appreciation of the area.
On a brief flight in mid-summer, after
pointing out the Village Farms greenhouse
buildings below, the old road to Fort Davis
that lies west of the current Hwy. 17 and
pointing toward the Davis Mountains,
Mount Livermore, Elephant Mountain and
Big Bend National Park, Compton indicat-
ed some shower clouds and asked, “Do you
see the walking rain?”
Later that night those clouds would
deposit welcome rain on Alpine, Marfa and
Marathon.
“It’s beautiful across the prairie,” he said.
“Every time I come up I see something new,
experience a new joy.”
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Saturday, October 6th • 4pm to 8pm
The Art Gallery on the Lajitas Boardwalk
Enjoy wine, cheese and live music.
Featured Artist
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Sept. 28th - Nov. 30th
Paintings, Pastel Drawings
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Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2012
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