LOUIS TURFIELD MILLER
Turfield has been a Designated Aircraft Maintenance Inspector since September 23, 1947, when he was issued Designation Number 1520 by the CAA, forerunner of the FAA. Ken Kress at Baltimore GADO issued Certificate Number 1003 to Turfield, making him a Mechanic Examiner on May 6, 1968.
I didn't want that rating when I first met Turfield, but asked anyway, "What is it you look for when you examine a candidate for the rating, to become an Aircraft and Engine Mechanic? After all, they will be repairing airplanes I fly."
"Well, don't know if
anybody ever asked me that question,exactly," Turfield answered.
"Say you just came in through the door of my hangar and wanted the
rating. I'd point to that airplane over there and ask you to
change the brakes on it."
That's straight forward and simple, the way Turfield approaches anything. Hard to fib to a man like that.
Turfield continued, "I can tell right away if the candidate is a mechanic. By the way he picks up the tools. I can tell."
That is really an easy way to judge someone who works with his hands. Over the years I have watched Turfield at work. Easy for me to know if a mechanic is skilled. I look at his hands.
"Turfield, I never saw your hands cut and bloody, nor smeared with grease," I told him.
"No need. If you know where you're reaching and what you're doing. No cuts. No grease," He chuckled, holding up his hands.
It really is in the hands. Wouldn't want a nervous surgeon rearranging your insides. Neither could you trust a clumsy mechanic. Turfield summed up his philosophy about mechanics, "I don't want to pass some candidate who ends up beating it to fit and painting it to match. By the way he first picks up his tools. I can tell."
Louis Turfield Miller was born October 14, 1912 in Baltimore, Maryland. After high school in Baltimore, Turfield went to the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics and completed his Airframe and Powerplant course in 1940.
After graduating, Turfield worked at Curtis Wright Field, Baltimore. The company was Hanover Baltimore School of Aeronautics.
The war started in 1941, and Turfield went to work for Taylor Aviation, New Kingston, Pennsylvania, performing War Training Service in 1942.
After the war, Herbert R. O'Connor, Governor of Maryland, issued a Certificate of Appreciation to Private Louis Turfield Miller, U.S. Army, in recognition of gratitude from the people of Maryland for his service during World War II.
In 1945, Turfield started his own business at Harbor Field in Baltimore, where he handled the maintenance for TWA. He fell in love with the four-engine flying boats that operated out of Harbor Field and rebuilt a four-engine Sikorski S-44 flying boat July 16, 1953. It was the last big flying boat on scheduled service out of Harbor Field. It is now in the Sikorski museum in Connecticut.
Photo of Sikorsky VS-44 Flying Boat provided by Warren Disbrow, New England Air Museum, Bradley Int'l Airport, 36 Perimeter Road, Windsor Locks, CT 06096
After moving to Lee Airport, Annapolis, in 1960 and becoming owner and operator of Baltimore Aero Service, Turfield rebuilt a rare three-cylinder Piper J-3P Cub powered by a 50 horsepower Lenape engine. It was the 2474th aircraft built by Piper in the late 1930s and was equipped with floats. The aircraft was placed in dead storage prior to World War II.
The J-3P Cub was presented to Mr. William T. Piper at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where it was manufactured. It was ferried to Lock Haven by Major Karl Ascherfeld, USAF (Ret.), a former B-36 pilot of Riverside, California, and Dr. Alfred Garrison of Baltimore, Maryland.
Late in the afternoon when I used to give flying lessons, there was always some place to land and let the student listen to older pilots talk. Flying above Lee airport around 5 P.M., you could look down and see Turfield at the picnic table near the open hangar doors. Invariably he was there. That's when he opened a six-pack to share with anybody who dropped in. Instructors and student pilots had to decline his offer.
One summer afternoon when Maryland was producing a few well defined cumulus buildups, I pointed toward the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and said, "Always one just about over there."
The student looked at Turfield and asked, "How do you handle something like that?"
"Only got near one once. That was enough."
Turfield told us about being over New York city someplace on an afternoon like that. He thought poking his nose in between a couple of low clouds would show him the way, free and clear.
"Thing sucked me right up. Got caught in an updraft. Like an elevator. Man, we went uphill. I just sat there with my arms crossed."
Turfield tightened his seatbelt and harness, pulled the carburetor heat on the Stinson he was flying, and reduced power to idle.
"Just took my hands off the controls. Put my feet on the floor. And let her go. Not much strain on the airplane."
It must have seemed like a few hours, tumbling and twisting.
"What finally happened?" the student asked.
"Spit us out at seventeen thousand feet. Out we came, like a peach seed. I didn't know which way was up. Guess the airplane did."
"Then what?"
"Took up a heading toward clear sky." The look on his face indicated that was about all he needed to tell a student pilot, or an instructor.
Turfield's lasting contribution to General Aviation was an efficient and inexpensive inspection unit that detects leaks in aircraft muffler assemblies. He designed and manufactured it.
His goodbye has never varied when we visit, "Goodbye, lover. Keep your power dry."
"Lover of what?" I asked him once.
"Aviation," Turfield answered. That just about says it all when you look back over his many years of repairing, rebuilding and flying airplanes.
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