Lometa resident Dave Smith, a nominee for a Federal Aviation Administration 50-year pilot’s award, holds a model of a North American T-6, a 1940s- and 1950s-era airplane Smith used to fly. PHOTO BY DAVID LOWE D ave Smith’s claim to fame? He used to fly around in time machines.

Well, not exactly, but those who looked inside the World War II-era airplanes the Lometan used to own often found their memories traveling back nearly half a century.

As pilot of the only StinsonVultee L-1 still flying at the time, Smith claimed the “Most Rare Warbird” award at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s 1993 air show in Oshkosh, Wis.

Beginning in 1939, L-1s were built to allow the U.S. Army to imitate the lightweight and slow, lowaltitude flying abilities of the Fiesler Storch, a German military observational aircraft.

Within just a few years, however, Stinson began producing the L-5 for the U.S. War Department. Smaller, lower in horsepower, less expensive and easier to maintain in the field than the L-1, the L-5 soon became the Army’s preferred observational airplane. L-1 production ceased after just 324 planes, according to an October 1993 article in the EAA Warbirds of America, Inc.’s Warbirds magazine.

Dave Smith of Lometa flies in a Stinson-Vultee L-1, a restored World War II-era airplane that received the “Most Rare Warbird” designation at the 1993 Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-In Convention (now known as EAA AirVenture Oshkosh) in Oshkosh, Wis. PHOTO BY CARL SCHUPPEL, COURTESY OF EAA WARBIRDS OF AMERICA Smith, who began flying in the Army Reserves in 1958, later resolved to keep alive memories of the L-1. Long after ending his service in the Reserves and several years after selling his welding supply business, Smith bought an L-1 in San Antonio. The aircraft had flown in the 11th Air Force in Alaska before it was shifted to service in the Alaska Fish and Game Commission.

Smith hired a mechanic to restore the airplane. Working mostly on weekends, the mechanic devoted seven years to restoring the L-1 to its original 1941 condition. Once the work was complete, the airplane featured original instruments, radio equipment and pilot handbooks.

Smith also posted in his plane a map he received from pilot John Hed. The map showed the course Hed followed when he flew L-1s from Anchorage to Shimya Air Base in the Aleutian Islands during World War II.

Smith’s L-1 garnered attention and prompted reminiscing, close to home as well as at faraway air shows. In Georgetown, Smith met a man who recalled performing maintenance on L-1s.

“It was bringing back 50-year memories for him,” Smith said.

On another occasion, Smith met a “Rosie the Riveter,” when an elderly woman in South Texas climbed into one of his airplanes and regaled Smith with accounts of helping construct aircraft during World War II.

Sharing his love of little-known planes with aircraft aficionados across the country gave Smith as much pleasure as taking top honors for his L-1.

“To take one and rebuild it, and have it historically correct, and then have it win an award at a national show, for somebody from San Antonio is pretty nice,” Smith said.

The L-1 remains open to public view as an Alaska state judge who bought the historic plane from Smith donated the aircraft to the Alaskan Aviation Heritage Museum, Smith said.

While the L-1 legacy remains strong, Smith also is likely to receive ongoing recognition for his work as a pilot. The Lometa resident has been nominated for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, bestowed on pilots with a safe flying record of at least 50 consecutive years. He expects to learn next month if he will receive the award.

He certainly has a wide variety of aviation experience to recommend him. Smith’s eight pilot log books, the oldest of which date back to 1958, record the service of a pilot who has flown everything from observational military airplanes to private charter aircraft to American Airlines commuter planes.

After completing nine months of Army flight training at Fort Rucker, Ala., and at Camp Gary in San Marcos, Smith flew as a reservist in his native San Antonio. He also flew at Fort Polk, La. — which he calls his “overseas” duty because of the area’s isolated location amidst pine trees and swamps — and Fort Hood before his Army service ended in 1966.

The interest in flying continued when Smith developed his San Antonio welding supply operation. Purchasing business offices in Laredo and Del Rio, in fact, gave Smith a good excuse to travel by air.

By the time he bought the L-1, Smith had owned five aircraft, including a single-engine, fixed-gear Cessna 206, a faster twin-engine Cessna 310 and a twin-engine Piper Navajo.

He logged many miles in the Navajo when a pastor friend of his from San Antonio was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a 19 million-member convention at the time.

Because he enjoyed a fairly flexible work schedule as a charter pilot, Smith was able to serve as his friend’s private pilot for two years. Along with trips outside the United States, Smith flew to locales as varied as Schenectady, N.Y., Hilton Head, S.C. and Las Vegas.

In one particularly grueling trip, Smith flew his friend to the Nevada Baptist Convention in time for a 9 p.m. speech. Just 12 hours later, the duo had criss-crossed the United States for an appearance at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.

“I think we got there at 5:30, and he had about 30 minutes of sleep before he spoke,” Smith said.

Along with the many memories he made behind the controls of his Navajo and his L-1, Smith also delighted in flying his North American T-6. For years, he flew the T-6 in Confederate Air Force events, providing onlookers with glimpses of the World War II-era Army training plane’s capabilities.

From civilians to family members — two of Smith’s daughters received private pilot licenses — to high-ranking military officials, Smith’s passengers received more than just transportation. They enjoyed opportunities to fly in pieces of living history.

“It gave me a lot of satisfaction in exposing these highly rated pilots to planes they had never seen before, had never experienced before,” Smith said of military officers he flew when volunteering for the Confederate Air Force. “I can’t tell you how many people I took up for their first flight in a light-wheel plane.”

Retired and at home in Lometa since 1992, Smith has sold the last of his airplanes. Now he rents aircraft when he wants to fly.

“That’s real hard to do when you’ve owned your own plane and gone 250 miles per hour and then you go to a little single-engine plane putting along at 110 miles per hour,” he said.

Fortunately for Smith, he does not always measure the joy of a flight in terms of miles traveled or the top speed attained. Throughout his many decades as a pilot, he learned a simple formula for transporting his passengers back in time and helping them love historic aircraft.

“You teach people the joy of flying,” Smith said.