By Bill Armstrong, January 2009
Romney Flying Service, for a period of over twenty years beginning in the late 1960’s, performed contract flying services for the West Virginia Department of Agriculture. Roger Smith, owner of RFS, was a retired educator and owned four aircraft: three Piper PA-18 Super Cubs and a Bellanca Citabria based at the Mexico Farms Airfield, the second oldest active airport in the state of Maryland – the oldest being College Park.
A quote from the firm’s operations manual states: “RFS is engaged in aerial detection survey work under contract to the WV Department of Agriculture. These operations include flights for the purpose of spotting insect and disease infestations (Oak Wilt, Gypsy Moth defoliation, and others).” Each year the company sought and received a waiver under FAR 91.79 (c) which allowed for operations to a minimum of 200 feet over any person on the surface. Without this waiver the operations would have been in large part illegal in the eyes of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Four pilots were employed by RFS during the fair weather months and the WV Dept. of Agriculture employed “spotters” to fly in the back seat of the tandem type aircraft to spot and map the siting of the located diseased trees. West Virginia DOA’s prime purpose was to preclude any lumber industry firm from shipping diseased trees overseas or elsewhere which could spread the disease. The diseased oak trees were located by observing from an aerial view the tree tops that had a burnt orange coloring of the leaves. The siting was noted on detailed quadrangle maps and these maps were then later used by ground based personnel to go to the site and employ a variety of means to attempt to kill the bad trees. Eventually the program was terminated when it was determined to be unsuccessful in the long run. The disease would reappear in another location in a random fashion and was finally deemed a losing battle.
As one of the four pilots involved in this operation, I experienced a siting to be long remembered. My back seat spotter had been dropped off near his home and I was in transit in the 150 hp Citabria (a name derived from the backwards spelling of aerbatic) heading back to Mexico Farms. My random thoughts were that my rear end was telling me that I would be happy to call it a day and was mentally computing how many hours I would be logging in the end of mission report for pay purposes. Cruising along south of Burlington, WV at a leisurely 75 mph and heading northeast I became aware of a strange white circle on the horizon. The neat, bright circle appeared quite large and far distant and lay there without any apparent movement. I then cast my eyes, doing a double take more than once, and recalled thinking to myself, “I have been a skeptic all my life of the reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO).” and now began to feel, “Damn, have I now seen one?”
As a retired Air Force pilot I had flown lots of aircraft all over the world and seen some strange things but this was stranger than any before observed. I have read of the weird happenings at Roswell, NM and was aware of the reported sightings by airline pilots and others as to these unique UFO reports, but found none credible in my mind. But what was I currently observing? As I stared and blinked the object did not move, rather it appeared to become slightly larger as the round shape remained fixated just above the horizon. As I continued my course direct to the object I thought this should be interesting, and wouldn’t you know it I have no camera on board to record this or a passenger to verify what I am currently observing.
The white object continued in place and seemed to stare back at me as the northeast course was maintained. Even if I had not been tracking to the home base and had observed this in another direction, there is no doubt that my interest would have peaked to the point I would be committed to search out this most unusual object. After over five minutes of this fascination a slight movement was detected. The glowing object began to change slightly to where it was not in the full circle view but rather a circle beginning to flatten out.
Suddenly as the movement continued my trance ended and my dream like state came to an abrupt ending. Ahead of my position some five miles distant was nothing more than an airborne blimp! Reality returned, and my past fascination ended just as briskly as had my original viewing of this unidentified flying object. The afternoon sun over my left shoulder had obviously reflected on the silver nose of the blimp, hence the glow that so enthralled me. From this brief encounter my senses told me that I was somewhat removed from reality, and it struck me as relief that my real world status had returned.
As I neared the Mexico Farms home base the Goodyear blimp, which had used the adjacent Cumberland Regional Airport as a stopover point previously, continued to ever so slowly circle over the city. The Goodyear flight crew had obviously been simply leisurely flying over and near the airport awaiting the arrival of their ground crew. This crew is required to secure to the ground an upright stanchion. Once the upright pole is in place the flight crew flies slowly to the top of the stanchion and the blimp is locked in place and moored for security. The blimp then becomes what is truthfully the world’s largest windsock, as it is free to rotate and roam with the prevailing surface wind. Undoubtedly many others, from ground level, were fascinated to watch the Goodyear blimp arrive in the Cumberland area on that day, but none had my view, nor were transfixed as I to this temporary UFO.
Wings Over Cumberland 