Retired Naval navigator honors Marine aviators

[thedrifter]

Retired Naval navigator honors Marine aviators
December 30,2003
PAT COLEMAN
FREEDOM ENC

MAYSVILLE - Tom McFalls has translated his love of aircraft and his respect for those who fly them into a unique holiday greeting that covers nearly an acre of his front yard.

In the shadow of the tattered windsock McFalls consults before he takes off from his private air strip in his vintage Piper Cub, McFalls has reproduced silhouettes of the Marine Corps' four primary helicopters with a five-foot tall message: "Thank You" and "Happy Holidays."

"Helicopters are very, very useful, but they don't get their due," said McFalls, an H-53 helicopter engineer at Cherry Point's Naval Air Depot. "I have to admit I was among them that didn't think much of them years ago."

According to McFalls, the process of creating his greeting began with the layout of a string grid of three-foot squares.

"It takes a while to get it marked off." he said.

He used scale drawings from helicopter maintenance manuals of the H-53, H-46, H-60 and HU-1E to outline the aircraft before he planted winter rye grass, which grew bright green against the brown field.

"Tom doesn't do things to call attention to himself," his wife, Leslie, said. "He started this to say thank you to the guys, because he has a real special relationship with them. The thank you this year was particularly important."

Tom McFalls began his 22-year stint in the Navy as an aircraft mechanic.

After flight training in 1970, he became a navigator aboard the Navy's AE-6 Intruder attack jet. Over the course of his Navy career, he logged nearly 3,000 hours and 700 landings in the Intruder. He also served as a flight instructor. His second career supporting the H-53 helicopters followed his retirement from the Navy in Pensacola.

"If you see what these guys do, you can appreciate the complexity of the airplane for one thing," he said of the Marines who fly them. "There is nothing else around that can do that job."

The tribute to his fellow aviators has attracted more and more visiting aircraft, as the word of its existence has spread. Tom McFalls said he had no idea how much attention it would attract when he shot a picture of it from his small plane and e-mailed it to a few friends.

"I'm amazed how far it's spread," he said. "There was a Vietnam helicopter association. Someone picked it up and it was there."

On his way home recently Tom McFalls noticed the Marine Corps' H-46 Search and Rescue helicopter, Pedro, circling his field.

"I was just coming down the road, so I didn't get a chance to wave at them," he said.

Located about halfway between Naval Air Station New River and the decommissioned air field at Oak Grove, at coordinates N 34 54.4, W 77.16.1, the tribute will be visible until the grass around it begins to turn green in the spring, he said.


http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.co...Section=Liberty


Sempers,

Roger