Regular flyers form "Irregulars"
Local pilots band together
in an effort to keep airstrip
By PAT MCGLONE
The Kerrs Creek Irregulars are not a big corporate entity and they are not professional lobbyists.
The group of five pilots, who own and operate a private runway - a grass strip in the rural Kerrs Creek area west of Lexington - just want to fly.
Some neighbors to the airstrip vehemently opposed a proposed ordinance change that would have allowed the group to increase the number of planes from four to eight and allow them to fly on Sunday mornings.
Monday, the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors decided in a 4-0 vote, with one abstention, in favor of a compromise with the Irregulars. They allowed for a jump to six planes and that each pilot could take off and land once between the formerly blacked out hours between nine and 12 in the morning on Sundays.
The “Irregulars” are happy with the compromise. But the noisy opposition left them feeling misunderstood.
Philip Clayton
One of them, Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Philip Clayton, says he doesn’t have a lot of time for people who are against airplanes and airports.
“If it had not been for the pilots in World War II, you and I and the rest of the people in Rockbridge County would be speaking Japanese on German,” he said. “To me, the airplane is a symbol of that heritage and that freedom.”
His father was a pilot during World War II and Clayton spent some of his earliest years on airbases. But it was the war of his generation that put him on the path to aviation.
“The Vietnam War nailed the coffin lid down and set the course in concrete,” he said. “I probably would have been a pilot eventually, anyway, but the Vietnam War hastened the whole process.”
Clayton got into flying during his senior year at Virginia Military Institute when he was put through the Flight Instruction Program.
He is now a pilot for American Airlines and trains crews to fly the large 757’s and 767’s on international flights.
Some may ask what history a world traveler like Clayton has invested in this community?
While his father was in the process of retiring in 1954, he told Clayton’s mother to get in the family station and drive north until she found a beautiful place to live. When she got to Lexington it took her breath away.
The family started off farming before going into business restoring old homes, a passion that carried over. His father helped found the local historical society in the 1960’s.
Carl Cummings
Carl Cummings, the president of Blue Ridge Office Products, is another Irregular.
When he was 18 or 19, a girlfriend’s father would take him flying. Then during college he got his own pilot’s license.
After college he was offered a job island-hopping the Virgin Islands but did not pursue it and because his vision is not 20-20, flying in the military was not an option.
“My interest was pretty much destined to be personal pleasure,” Cummings said.
He got married in the 70’s and had a family, which dried up any funds he could have used on his hobby. After that he didn’t fly anything for 20 years.
In 1995 a friend walked into his office and said he had purchased an airplane. He asked Cummings if he would go halves. Just like that, he rekindled a passion that had begun with pictures of planes his mother had given him as a child.
He and his partner started keeping the plane in Roanoke but began looking for places in the county shortly after.
“I knew it was going to be an issue trying to get a place in this county,” he said. “There were so many people moving in here that wanted this county to be something different than most of the people who lived here.”
Finally, in 1999 the five Irregulars bought the property on which the airstrip sits.
Cummings said he has flown both his children to NFL games and used to fly the family to the Florida Keys for vacation. The trip only takes about five hours, but just like any road trip they usually had to stop for bladder emergencies along the way.
Cummings said he even “adopted” a homesick Washington and Lee student from Arkansas in the late 1990’s. Eventually the families became friends and were able to visit because of his plane.
As for the renovations to the airstrip ordinance, Cummings said he isn’t trying to hoodwink anyone. To him it seems the issue is becoming more of an emotional ordeal than a rational one.
Bob Bowlling
Bob Bowlling, like Clayton, doesn’t even have an airplane at the strip. He is in the process of building his own gyrocopter, a hybrid between a plane and a helicopter.
Bowlling’s interest in flight started as a young child when he would get rides in a friend’s plane out of cow pasture.
After serving in the military Bowlling had some money saved up and started taking piloting lessons. Over the years he has owned multiple planes and two helicopters.
Such a hobby may sound expensive but he said it costs little more than owning a Harley-Davidson. It’s really just the initial investment that costs a bit of money. The last plane he owned cost him about $23,000.
“I was paying less on insurance than some of these teenagers are paying on their car,” he said. “And they [planes] are a lot more fun.”
Bowlling said his airplane insurance was about $1,200 a year.
John Kowalczyk
John Kowalczyk, a retiree from Maryland, said he originally bought property in Rockbridge County in the 1970’s when there was an airport in the area. It was one of the reasons he invested here.
He said he would like to have the permit for extra planes so that pilot friends, and VMI and W&L alumni could stow their planes overnight. The Irregulars have had to turn down many requests.
“We don’t expect to do anything commercial,” he said. “We just want to have fun.”
And, he said, the group is just trying to advance aviation.
Chuck Barger
The fifth Irregular, Chuck Barger, has always had a passion for flight.
“It’s a sense of freedom and getting away,” he said.
His father did some flying at the old Lexington airport and Barger began when he was about 25. Like Cummings, he stopped for many years, though he has always loved aviation as a personal passion.
Barger enjoys keeping abreast of the technological advances and said it has allowed him to meet a whole group of friends he wouldn’t have encountered otherwise.
“It’s kind of like horseback riding or any sort of sport or passion that others share, that you can talk about no matter what economic background you have,” he said. “You speak the same language.”
Past coverage on the air strip
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead supervisor: Prof. Claudette Artwick
Reporting supervisors:
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd