 EPISODE VII:THE ORANGE GROVE
By Ron Fox
One character from my border flying days who will always have a spot in my heart, was Steve Stevens. He was a big man who liked to chew on cigar butts. Ex-Air America, I never saw him flinch. If there ever was an epitome of the familiar character John Wayne played in the movie "Flying Tigers", Steve was it. He was a roll your sleeves up kinda guy. He usually wore jeans with cowboy boots and a lumberjack type shirt. He rarely showed any emotion except for an occasional smile and wasn’t real talkative. He never bragged about his exploits, but you could tell the way he handled a DC-3, he had been in plenty of tight spots with them. A lot of guys, during a difficult maneuver, would grit their teeth, squint there eyes, stick out their tongue or screw up their mouth. Steve’s eyebrows may have gone up a little, or he might have rolled that cigar butt around in his mouth a couple of times, but that was usually it. It seemed like the more dangerous a maneuver was, the more he liked it.
He was the only captain we had who would fly into the Orange Grove. From the stories I had heard about him, I was the only pilot we had crazy enough to go with him in there. I was qualified as captain on the DC-3 at the time, towards the end of my short border career, but we were having trouble finding anyone who wanted to go into the Orange Grove, so I volunteered to be his first officer. The fact that Steve had put two Curtis C-46’s down in a matter of a couple of months in the Sierra Madres at night, both in thunderstorms and walked away from both of them didn’t help. What that told me was that he was either very good, or very lucky. Either was a plus for me. Skill flying the bush had been a very big part of my continued existence. Luck may have played a bigger part, it’s always hard to tell which was predominant.
Steve was enjoyable to watch flying an airplane. His big, sure hands moved over the controls with precision. He never fiddled with throttles, prop levers or mixture levers. He set them exactly where he wanted them and left them alone. He pushed, pulled or turned the yoke effortlessly. His coordination of ailerons and rudder produced the smoothest turns I have ever witnessed. I have seen a lot of good flying, but I have never seen flying this good without the pilot working hard at it. Steve was good and he enjoyed it.
The Orange Grove was situated in mid-eastern Mexico, further inland than most of our other strips. We had to arrive at the mouth of the river we would be following near dawn in order to see it. We followed this winding river for about a half hour after leaving the coast. I had no idea where it was, having never seen its location on a chart. I was along for the ride, and some ride it was.
I was enjoying the hard turns, close to the river surface as we followed its meandering course up into rolling foothills. Watching Steve provided not only entertainment, but an increasing admiration of his skills. My admiration was soon to soar in the next few minutes because I was soon to learn why no one wanted to go into the Orange Grove.
After about a half hour of IFR flying, (I Follow River), we came around a bend and suddenly found ourselves very close to a steep group of mountains off to our right. Almost as soon as I saw the mountains close to the river, I looked to my left and saw a small valley with a small pasture of green grass next to a large grove of what must have been orange trees. The grove and the pasture extended from the base of a small hill at one end and ended right at the edge of the river on our left. The river suddenly took a sharp turn to the left which Steve followed, now flying along the length of the orange grove which now marked our left downwind leg for landing. I didn’t have very much time to survey the area because as soon as we turned downwind, Steve called for the gear down, followed quickly by half flaps. Slowing, beginning our base leg turn, I was able to see what was our proposed landing area more clearly and the sight was impressive. We would have to turn a sharp base leg turn to final to avoid the hill at the approach end of the pasture and sink rapidly in order to get the airplane down on the ground in enough time to stop. You see, the end of the pasture was defined by the river. And right across from the river were several high mountains. There would be no room for a go-around. This was a landing you had to do right the first time.
Steve maintained a high enough speed in our descent to handle the steeply banking turn to final, all the while dropping like a rock. Before he had even come out of the turn he called for full flaps and I responded immediately. The engines were at idle. I recall we were about twenty to twenty-five knots over stall in a high sink rate. At what seemed like the last possible moment, Steve pulled the yoke all the way back into his lap and the nose of the airplane came up high. Normally such a high nose attitude was associated with a climb, but Steve was using the last of our flying airspeed to arrest out sink rate. We slammed down on the ground and, upon first contact, I popped up the flaps. I knew we had to get as much weight on the wheels as we could in order to maximize our braking. Without the luxury of anti-skid, Steve was milking the brakes heavily and we came to a stop with plenty of room to spare. Other than a navy aircraft carrier, it was the most exciting landing pattern I had ever experienced. It was a real rush. Without so much as a sigh of relief, Steve turned to me and said, "Ain’t this a great strip?"
"I love it!", was all I could think to say. "My knees are shakin’ a little bit, but it’s the best ride I’ve had in years!"
Our trip home was uneventful. After taking off empty we just headed out to the east to find the water as quickly as possible. Smugglers were always safer when out over the water, well away from the coastline.
Steve was a free-lance pilot who worked for several of the operators from Brownsville, McAllen and Laredo. Since he was pretty busy most of the time, I didn’t ever have another opportunity to fly with him. My border-flying career was nearing its end.
I have kept in occasional touch with Steve over the years. He’s now past sixty and was one of the few pilots who flew the border for many years without ever getting captured or killed. I had, for many years afterward, hoped to be able to start a small FAR Part 135 airline which allows pilots to fly beyond the age of sixty so I could hire him to fly for me. It would have been a real service to many young flyers to be exposed to his skill.
Copyright 1998, BUSHPILOT, all rights reserved.
Watch for more Ron Fox Smuggler's Tales in the weeks ahead - Editor
Reprinted with the permission of the author For this and other stories online, visit Ron Fox BushPilot Web site.
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