The Blue Plane (Yes, THAT Blue Plane!)

Like most March days that are written about, the day was a cold one, damp with a fine constant mist of rain spitting down from low-lying clouds. It was on just such a day in 1998 that I found myself flying in the tiny blue plane that resides on the famed rooftop on Main Street in Darby, Pennsylvania. The plane had intrigued me all my youth, and here I was seated in its mysterious cockpit.

If you hail from Delaware County, chances are the plane has been a source of conversation, consideration and mystery for much of your life. Thanks to the Blue Route, I’m afraid fewer and fewer people encounter the plane these days, and I am certain fewer and fewer children even known of its existence.

Today, a trip to the Jersey shore or a Phillies game means pulling out of the driveway, hopping on the nearest on-ramp to 476, and following the Blue Route until it dead-ends at 95. Today’s children will have nostalgic memories of watching the beige sound barriers go by along the Blue Route.
Taking their own children to the ballpark or the shore 30 years from now, they’ll cruise along the Blue Route and pine for the good old days, boring the younger set in the backseat with a “When I was a kid, there was no ivy along those sound barriers. There was no green at all, in fact. It was just pure and simple . . . beige.”

Tis sad to be nostalgic for beige. Though if that is all one sees, what else can be expected? The Blue Route makes for a beige existence. Blah-blah-blah-accident-blah-brakelights-blah-blah-blah. It makes for a memory without character.

Pre-Blue Route, however, the most direct route from Delaware County to South Philly or South Jersey was right down Main Street in Darby, hooking a right onto Island Avenue. Here one would find more than brake lights and beige.

Whether it was heading to the Vet, the airport, or the shore, the most exciting part of the journey was the brief stretch through Darby. Here were the trolley tracks that were just wide enough for smaller cars to slide and glide along. Here was the enormous sign for Big Marty’s Carpet Warehouse, complete with Big Marty’s ugly mug, his gigantic collar, and those classic 70s sideburns which equaled the size of some of the carpets he sold. Here was the train intersection that would have you counting into triple digits as a train passed by, wondering just how an engine could pull that many cars. And yes, here was the Blue Plane.

Curiosity eventually got the best of me and I decided to find out why that Blue Plane was perched up on that rooftop in Darby. I penned a short little letter expressing this curiosity, addressing it simply to “The House with the Blue Plane on the Roof,” Main Street, Darby, PA.

Two days later I had my reply in the form of a letter from Skiles Fielding Montague, flight simulator salesman. That Blue Plane, Skiles explained, is a GAT-1 single engine flight simulator, and he placed it on his roof in 1977 to help advertise his business. The explanation was followed by an invitation – would I like to come to his place to fly one of his simulators?

And so it was that I found myself driving down Lansdowne Avenue on a damp and misty March day, laughing out load in giddy anticipation of actually getting a chance to enter the house with the Blue Plane! I cannot say I was without pause, for I was a bit anxious about entering this shady house to meet a stranger who kept a plane on his roof, a man named Skiles no less – a man who just the week before asked if I wanted to fly his simulator.

I felt like I was caught in the script of a bad horror flick. The naïve young man at the wheel, struggling to see the road as the sound of the wiper blades thunder in his ears. Flash to the dark and ominous house with the Blue Plane on the roof. Close up of the young man, a nervous smile on his face. Cut to the house. The sound of a car slowing down with the splash of a puddle along the curbside. The car door slams shut. The young man’s face, the smile replaced by anxiety. Close up of the front door of the dark house. Footsteps. The finger on the doorbell, a slight pause for climax, and then the heart-jumping doorbell (depending on the director’s preference, either the “bzzz” doorbell to scare the adrenaline into the audience, or the metered “Ding-dong ding-dong... ding-dong ding-dong” to prolong the climax and leave the audience screaming at the screen: “NOOOO!”

With my own finger on the doorbell, and a voice inside me screaming “NOOOO!”, I pressed the button and anxiously awaited my fate.

When the door opened, I was greeted by a bearded gentleman who very easily could have passed for Burl Ives – both in looks and in voice. He ushered me into the house with the Blue Plane.

The first thing that struck me about the house was how dark it was. The walls, floors and doors were all a deep chestnut. The hallways were narrow, and the tiny rooms seemed claustrophobic. As Skiles guided me through the house, a continuous loop ran through my head: “Get out now! You are voluntarily going to your death! No one knows you came here today! You’ll never be found! Run for it!”

But like the character in the horror flick who follows his girlfriend into the woods, I followed Skiles. Proceeding down the narrow hallway, we entered the Montague kitchen, where Skiles’ wife Janet was busy preparing a salad. She had an enormous knife in her hand and was slicing vegetables.
It all became clear to me as the voice in my head laughed at me: “Oh, so this is how I die.”

Skiles then ushered me to another door, supposedly directing me toward the flight simulator. The door, however, led to his basement, and with each step I took into the cellar the voices of the audience grew louder: “Turn back, you nimrod! Don’t go down there! NOOO!”

My own voice echoed, “Oh, so this is how I die.”

As it turns out, the basement was merely a means of getting to ground level, as Skiles directed me toward an exit.

Opening the door, I found myself side by side with Skiles in his fenced-in backyard. He pointed to a small building in the corner.

“That’s where the flight simulator is.”

The voice in my head responded, “Oh, so that’s where I’m going to die.”

I followed Skiles.

When we entered the small building, I found myself in a 4x8 cell of a room decorated from wall to wall with memorabilia from the Lions Club. In the search of the Blue Plane I had stumbled upon the Southeast Delco Lions Club Museum! The only piece of furniture in the room (it also being the only piece of furniture that would fit into the room) was a lounge chair. It was an eerie sight, and only confirmed the whisperings and warnings in my head.

After a quick second or two, the museum tour was over and Skiles opened another door. I peered in and grinned from ear to ear.

The room was entirely white, with not a piece of furniture or even a painting. In the center of the room, however, was the Blue Plane! Here, before my very eyes, was a working model of the very plane I marveled at throughout my youth!

Perched on a pedestal, the tiny GAT-1 was a pale blue beauty. My glee quickly faded as Skiles opened the door of the tiny flight simulator and told me to hop on in.

I hopped.

He shut the door.

It was then that I noticed something which made me a bit uneasy. All the windows, including the windshield, were spray-painted white. The windows were completely opaque – I couldn’t see out! No one would hear my screams from here!

Skiles hopped in the opposite door and sat down next to me. The space inside the flight simulator was exceedingly tight, much like an enclosed roller coaster or one of those fancy four-quarter sit-down arcade games you’ve seen other kids play.

To my relief, he quickly explained the opaque windows: “Anyone can fly when they can see where they are going. The trick is to learn to fly by using the instrument panel. This, my friend, is what it’s like to fly through clouds.”

For the next half-hour, Skiles gave me my first flight lesson, explaining the various gages on the instrument panel and teaching me how to steer the plane using the foot pedal rudder while keeping a close eye on the altimeter and speedometer. I proceeded to buck the simulator back and forth, frontward and backward, throughout the entire lesson. Had we been 10,000 feet above Darby in a real plane, we’d have crashed on someone’s roof within seconds. I was truly a terrible pilot, but Skiles was patient and kind, reassuring me that the coordination necessary to fly takes time to develop.

When the lesson was over, I hopped out of the plane, happy to be on solid ground again. I felt triumphant, having flown the Blue Plane! And I hadn’t been killed yet, so by this point I was pretty confident that Skiles was no murderer.

Rather, Skiles was -- and remains -- quite the inspiration. He is a true Renaissance man for our times, a man with countless passions who makes time for each one of them in his life. This is evidenced by his koi and frog ponds; the in-ground pool and beehives in his backyard; his strong interest in genealogy and geology; his passion for history and historical preservation; his interest in technology, world travel and nude sunbathing.

Yes, nude sunbathing. Skiles founded Metro Naturists in 1982, and though I presume the nudist group travels for their dalliances in the sun, I can’t help but wonder if they gather locally as well. If you’ve ever happened upon a naked Burl Ives hanging out in Darby Creek, it was probably Skiles.

Skiles is the type of person we all need in our lives – the person who reminds us that life is too short to waste it on endeavors for which we are not passionate. So often we fail to follow through on even one of our passions or dreams. We tend to set them aside when we “grow up” and sooner or later completely forget about them.

Not Skiles. He remains a child at heart, a man who doesn’t think twice about putting a plane on his roof.

Perhaps there’s a Blue Plane within all of us, just waiting to be flown. And perhaps we simply need to be reminded that we can fly.

If only we would choose to do so.