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Final in a series -- Despite other enterprises, Tuttle's love of flying never ended
EDITOR'S NOTE -- This is the third and final installment of a story about early aviation in Southwest Nebraska and America's heartland. Harry Strunk, the owner and publisher of the McCook Daily Gazette, made world history in 1929 and 1930 when he delivered his daily papers by airmail. Although delivery costs and unpredictable weather grounded the little Curtiss Robin C1 airplane, they could not dampen pilot Steve Tuttle's love of flying.
The Great Depression set in after the Newsboy was grounded ... jobs were hard to find, and pilot Steve Tuttle and Mable, and their growing family of little girls, moved around quite a bit.
Steve couldn't be grounded. Out of McDonald, Kan., Steve ran a garage and flew when he could. At Christmas time, he put on air shows and flew Santa Claus to neighboring towns. Santa arrived by parachute, Mable's family history indicates.
When Steve and Mable lived in Culbertson, Steve owned and operated a fleet of Diamond T semi-trucks. Mable writes, "During the Dust Bowl days, he acquired 'dust pneumonia,' and almost died."
Steve helped write McCook aviation again when he flew the first airmail from McCook, during "National Airmail Week" in May 1938.
After leaving Decatur County in 1939, the Tuttles chased numerous flying opportunities. For a brief time, Mable Tuttle wrote, Steve flew border patrol over the Gulf of Mexico. He also flew for Jifford Brothers, in Hastings, Neb., putting on air shows and training pilots. In Russell, Kan., Steve joined Bud Brandeberry in the Russell Flying Service. Moving to Wichita, Kan., Steve worked for Aviation Industries.
In California, Steve trained at a cross-country and instrument training school, and ended up teaching at the school and working as chief pilot for Harte Flying Service in Blythe.
Also in Blythe and in Las Vegas, Nev., Tuttle flew for Ted Morton Flying Service, where he flew with celebrities the likes of Jimmy Stewart, Robert Taylor and Buddy Rogers.
During World War II, Steve was a senior test pilot, for four years, for Ford Motor Company in Willow Run, Mich., where he tested B-24 bombers for Ford and the Army Air Force.
At an air show in Albuquerque, N.M., back in 1929, Steve met Walter H. Beech, who had flown into the air show in a Travel Air 6000. Donna remembers that her dad and Beech became close friends and kept in touch.
In November 1946, Steve moved the family back to Wichita, where he joined "Beechcraft," as a test pilot in the production test flight division and then transferred to its experimental plane division. From 1950 until 1966, Steve was Beech's chief of flight and mechanical testing. Steve often flew with Walter Beech, Mable wrote, demonstrating and testing planes. One 32-day trip, to South America in a Beechcraft D18S, took the two men and Beech personnel over 12,000 miles through 12 countries.
While Steve was at Beechcraft, he managed the airport at Wellington, Kan., where he also farmed, built a service station, operated a cafe and did some crop-spraying.
Steve could never deny the "farmboy" in him, and in 1962 (or 1964), he bought several combines and hired them out during wheat harvest, joining the cutters on evenings and weekends when he could. In 1966, he moved to Benton, Kan., where he continued his combine business and operated a garage.
In 1968, at the age of 65, Steve Tuttle retired from Beechcraft, at which time he had logged 17,000 of flight time and made more "first flights" than any other Beech Aircraft test pilot. After his retirement, Steve followed his combines and summer harvest crews full-time, from Texas to North Dakota, combining wheat, beans, corn and milo "the rest of his active years," Mable wrote.
Steve's daughters didn't inherit his passion for airplanes and for flying. Donna said, "Dad bought me a log book, but I really wasn't interested in flying."
She continued, "I could keep a plane up, but I didn't learn to take off or land."
Donna said problems with her ears made flying uncomfortable. "We'd have to fly lower and then up again, to get my ears to clear," Donna said.
"Sandy was so much younger than the rest of us," Donna said. "I don't remember Sandy doing much with the airplanes."
Donna said, about her older sister, Beulah, "Billie liked to fly better than I did. She flew with Dad from time-to-time."
"As far as remembering the barnstorming years, the two little ones were too young for that," Donna said. All four girls were often allowed on Beech planes that their father was piloting. "He had to have so many hours of flight time," Donna said, "and Beech didn't mind that he took his family along."
Donna doesn't think that any of Steve's grandchildren have had flying lessons. "Dad retired at 65. The grandkids were all pretty young," she said.
Donna said that her son Tommy, Karen's son Steve and Billie's son Steve worked with their grandfather quite a bit after his retirement, building trailers for combines and going out on combine crews.
Donna said that their mother had to find crews for Steve's combines. "We worried so much that she'd find some crook just out of prison," Donna chuckled. "How would she know?"
Karen, the youngest sister, was born after the family moved to Wichita and Steve started working for Beech. She said recently, "Dad didn't even offer to teach me." She grew up hearing stories about flying B-24s at Willow Run. "They had some pretty good times," Karen said. "I feel left out."
"He was remarkable," Karen said. "To be a test pilot with no more education than he had. Without even a high school degree. I'm so very proud of my father."
Donna remembers that when she was young, maybe 14, their dad had a skating rink in Oberlin. "He made more money with that skating rink than with anything else he did."
Donna remembers too, that, when the family lived in McCook, where she was born on June 14, 1930, nothing was planted in the field across from their driveway. "He'd come home for lunch, land in the field, and then go back to work in the plane," she said. "He was always in those planes."
She continued, "He had all sorts of ideas about what he wanted to do with his life. But flying was his love."
Mable died in 1993, at the age of 86. Steve died June 21, 1994; he was almost 91 years old.
The couple has two surviving daughters, Donna Hampton and husband Wallace of Wichita and Karen Muller and husband Geril of Hemet, Calif.
Steve and Mable Tuttle have 21 grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.