Who Knows

On my recent trip to Mississippi for Thanksgiving, I drove past the interestingly large Meridian Regional Airport. I grew up within a mile of this airport, so I am quite familiar with its story. It, in fact, has quite an interesting story. The airfield owes its aforementioned unusually large size (in relation to Meridian) to the fact that it houses the Meridian Regional Airport, the Air National Guard 186th Air Refueling Wing (flying a number of rather large KC-135 Stratotankers), and 150th Engineer Battalion (with a number of general aviation flyers). With an average of only two outbound commercial flights a day, in a town of roughly 39,000, what happened to set this airfield apart?
In June 1935, brothers Al and Fred Key took to the air from the Meridian Airport, now known as Key Field, in an attempt to break the world record for sustained flight. Twenty-seven days later, they landed at the Meridian Airport having never left the county. They flew in a figure-eight pattern around Meridian for 653 hours and 34 minutes, equaling 52,320 miles. They stayed aloft the entire time! They had food and fuel lowered to them from another plane four times a day. In fact, with the help of local mechanic, A.D. Hunter, they pioneered air-to-air refueling; To this day, the military still uses a slightly modified version of their technique.
Why, during the great depression no less, would two men attempt such a novel undertaking? Well, the airport, which they co-managed, was slated to be shut down due to budget constraints. The brothers decided to fight for their airport. In fact, Meridian’s airport is one of the oldest surviving airports in the state of Mississippi. They saw an opportunity to make a difference for the threatened airfield and did not back down. After a couple weeks without landing, the nation and world started to take notice. National attention to the Key brothers and the Meridian Airport saved the small struggling operation. To this day, only astronauts aboard space stations have topped the Key brothers’ achievement.
Both brothers went on to become bomber pilots in World War II. Al later served as Mayor of Meridian. Today, you can go to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and see their plane hanging from the ceiling: a Curtis Robin named The Ole Miss, which they had to borrow for their endurance flight.
This story is quite interesting in a number of respects. Incredible endurance and sacrifice, coupled with a plan and a motivated team, placed Fred and Al Key in the record books and established a foundation that the present-day Key Field is built upon. There was no certainty. They had faced previous failed attempts. No one had a proven safe method of transferring fuel between two planes in flight. There was bad weather, notorious summer thunderstorms, a fire onboard the plane, a near mid-air collision; a thousand ways that it could have gone terribly wrong. In fact, the plane has a catwalk built around the engine so they could go out for routine maintenance, on a running-engine in flight!
Is there a parallel? I wish not to belabor the point. Endurance, bravery, sacrifice, teamwork and planning can pay tremendous dividends. These can also result in tragedy. But the only way anyone will ever know, is if it is attempted. And sometimes, re-attempted. Then, who knows? But, in this case, sitting on the ground “hoping” would have resulted in absolutely nothing.
Vision Weekend: Leadership Challenge
For current members of Parkway Youth Ministry
January 4-6, 2008