by Brandon V. Webb,
Texas Transportation Institute
“When this lease is up, I’ll be 91 years old,” says fixed-base operator and owner Cecil Ingram. “I came out here in 1948 to be a mechanic and flight instructor, and I was only going to be here long enough to make enough money to leave-and I’m still here.”
He sprayed crops for 45 years-the first in the area to sell farmers on the newfangled idea-and was an FM pilot examiner for more than 30 years, issuing private and commercial pilot certificates. He also erected several buildings and T-hangars that help-along with city-owned facilities-to comprise the Dalhart Municipal Airport. It is a scrupulously maintained outpost on the grounds of the former Dalhart Army Airbase. Stare at the massive, city-owned hangars on the property and the 9,000-foot runway (7,500 feet are lit), and it isn’t hard to hear the rumble of the B- 29s that lined the field in 1942.
From Sunday fly port to the wings of war and back
Men were trained for wartime flight in gliders, B-17s, fighter planes and the venerable B-29s in the early 1940s. But before that, what would become Dalhart Municipal Airport was only an idea when Robert Earl Johnson and Burton Hanbury bought the grassy field near Highway 54. The Dalhart Texan reports that the pair, “built a runway and hangar and were in business primarily for ‘Sunday pilots’ and some ranchers …. ”
In need of flying facilities, the more ready-made the better, the U.S. government began buying airports in a hurry when World War II broke out. From 1942 to 1945, some 15,000 soldiers passed through the facility on their way to war. In all, three bases would be spread out over the Army airfield’s 3,000 acres. And as of 1949, when Cecil Ingram started his crop spraying business, the former Army base was once again in the hands of the Sunday flier.
Ingram Flying Service
With tongue planted in cheek-or maybe not-Cecil Ingram describes the years not long after he took over the Dalhart Municipal Airport.
“I created the false image of success in the early 60s,” Ingram says. “I had some good banker friends that flew airplanes, and that helped a lot. I was able to borrow money for a new Beechcraft and fly it on air taxi for the insurance and fuel and sell it to get my seed money back and go get another one. I owned a lot of brand-new airplanes, flew them away from the factory and enjoyed every bit of it. But like I say, it was the false image of success.”
Humble though he is, Ingram is nothing short of a legend to his students, an aviation pioneer among crop sprayers, and a terrific boss to his assistant of 20 years, Belva Griego.
“It’s been a success all the way, Cecil,” she says turning to him, “Or you wouldn’t still be here.”
“Well,” he pauses,” I’ve managed to pay it all off. I don’t owe a dime to anybody on this airport. And, I’ve gotten to meet the best people in the world that fly. All of the greats that came along. We were almost like pioneers in this business.”
On a personal note
Cecil Ingram no longer pilots airplanes. Six decades after learning the craft, he is content now to no longer fly. The morning of our interview he’d completed his last act of flying, giving a student a biannual flight check. His flight instructor rating expired in February 2008, and he isn’t renewing.
”You might say I’ve had a perfect run and I don’t want to get like some of my friends and get so old I forget to put the wheels down,” Ingram says. “I’m at the age now it’s time to hang it up. I had a heart attack in ’94 and lost an eye because I took so much blood thinner to keep me alive that the retina in my left eye detached. I still got away with flying after that, but when they put a defibrillator in my chest, the insurance company said I need to ride in the back seat. The technology is fantastic.”
And that seems to summarize the man-at once looking both forward and backward. He is both nostalgic for the past and optimistic about the future. At the conclusion of our interview, I asked Mr. Ingram if I could snap a few photos of him near a vintage airplane in the lobby of the airport terminal.
After refusing help, he wrangled the large hangar doors open on the side of the terminal building. He started toward the airplane to pose for his picture, noticed something and frowned. He reached in his pocket, whipped out a tissue, crawled under the plane and started scrubbing the tile floor.
At 82-years old, Cecil Ingram had spotted a quarter-sized oil leak that he didn’t want in the picture.
And by the way, Mr. Ingram says the spotless, vintage airport cafe sits ready for reopening, if you happen to know any good cooks.
