By Bill Coyne
All boys have dreams ingrained at an early age. Whether it’s the influence of dad’s hot rod in the garage, the rumble as a pack of motorcycles drive by or the hum of an airplane overhead, it’s in our DNA. Those dreams often become a personal, passionate goal.
I recently became a pilot after many hours of training, delays and setbacks. During less than ideal weather days and the desire to absorb myself into aviation, I acquired a nice little radio controlled airplane. It was the same model I operate in flight training. I didn’t have the experience required to fly such an airplane, though, and I hung the aircraft on the wall until I did.
A friend and fellow aviation enthusiast, David Higginbotham, mentioned the radio controlled airstrip, Lake Area Radio Kontrol Society (LARKS) in Carlyss. He suggested I get some training lessons and insight on how to fly my radio-controlled airplane without the risk of scattering my bird into unrecognizable pieces across the ground.
I took a trip to the airfield, where I met RC pilot and enthusiast Scott Snider, an avid promoter of the hobby and the flying club. As things often go, I became sidetracked and put my RC lessons on hold.
That was until Lagniappe Magazine’s head honcho and publisher Greg Pavlovich pitched the idea of a story on fellow aviator and the man behind the airstrip, Mr. Dennis “Bo” Hinch.
I reached out and Mr. Hinch and I agreed on a time and date to meet at his house to conduct this little interview. Nervously, I knocked on the front door of the house and waited for a response. After a minute or so, I hear a gruff voice yell out from an adjacent building, “You’re gonna be there all day if you expect someone to answer the door.”
Hinch has a pronounced limp in his step and he tells me anytime I want to find him, he’ll be outside in his shop.
We shake hands and he invites me down the driveway to take a seat in the shade. The first few moments were spent in pure and utter awe. This is not just a shop, it’s a working man’s museum. There are large scale radio controlled airplanes hanging from the ceiling–many splintered with a story to tell in its final moments of flight. There are also an array of oilfield relics, scooters, engines and industrial era machinery. At Hinch’s it’s a tinkerers heaven and it tells his life story.
The aviator settles comfortably back into his chair, as I begin the interview with one simple question. “How did the RC Airstrip come about?”
“Well…” he says.
Hinch was an impressionable young boy with a dream and a plan. “I knew I wanted to fly airplanes,” he says. “I was going to join the Air Force, become a pilot and travel the world at the government’s expense.” Well, life, as it often does, threw a few curve balls at those dreams.
It’s 1955, and young Hinch is only 15-years-old. He and a couple buddies are walking a field when the accidental discharge of a shotgun strikes his left leg. The prognosis is bleak and his leg is amputated below the knee.
Through the process of rehab and therapy, Hinch is unable to attend school. “The school sent a lady to teach me at home while I was recovering. After the two years, I was ready to go back to school, but, those credits were never forwarded to the right people. When I went back, I was still in the ninth grade, according to them,” he says. “At that point, I just quit altogether.”
His father, a boilermaker employed at Cities Service Refinery, had instilled work ethic and mechanical skills into his sons beginning at a young age. This paid off and Hinch was able to earn a living as a mechanic for service stations and dealerships throughout Sulphur.
As fate would have it, an old friend, Ed Bell, who needed work done on his truck and stopped in at the dealership was a pilot and the two began talking airplanes. Hinch jumped at the offer to take a short flight with his friend.
Bell was selling a plane. It was a beautiful little 1945 Piper Cub J3, painted in chrome yellow, accented with signature black zig striped along the fuselage. The asking price was $1,200. With the help of a friend, Hinch purchases the plane and now he has a plane sitting in a hangar he can’t fly because he doesn’t know how.
That doesn’t stop him from taking weekend trips to the airport, pulling the beautiful bird out of the hangar, hand propping the little motor to life and listen to her purr. One particular day, pilot, Carl Schmitt, logging hundreds of hours in a Piper Cub engages conversation and asks Hinch why he never flies his plane.
As luck would have it, Schmitt is a flight instructor. Not so lucky, though, Hinch cannot afford to pay for lessons. He’s strapped with bills. Schmitt proposes a trade. He loves to skydive and he needs instruction. “How about we trade one hour of jump time for each hour of instruction?” Schmitt asks.
With four hours of dual time under his belt, the day comes. Schmitt enters the hangar donning a jumpsuit with a parachute strapped to his back.
“Today you’re going solo” says Schmitt. The pair climb into the aircraft, taxi out for takeoff and depart to the skies. For the better part of an hour, the plane struggles as it climbs to an altitude of 3,500 feet over the airport.
With the Cub in a gentle right turn bank and both men on the ready, Schmitt jumps out. In an instant, the plane is now down less than half its usable payload and there’s a shift in balance. Hinch rockets to the sky with all of the plane’s 65hp propelling at a staggering 200 feet per minute ascent.
Collecting the controls and attitude of the plane, the solo student begins the landing attempt and both men touch terra firma at the same time.
“That’s the prettiest landing I’ve ever seen,” says Schmitt. Upon demonstrating to the FAA Medical examiner that he has full control of the aircraft through the prosthetic leg, he earned his Private Pilot Certificate. And with that Hinch’s pilot career is now in forward momentum, ranking to 2nd Lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol.
It’s now 1969 and his father informs Hinch of a mechanic position at Cities Service, but there’s a catch. First, it’s only a two week temporary position meant to fill in spaces while employees are on vacation. Second, applicants must have a high school diploma or equivalent.
Hinch doesn’t want to have this opportunity pass him up so he enlists the help of his cousin, a teacher in Port Neches, to get him prepared to get his GED.
After a $50 fee and two days of testing, Hinch earns his GED and lands the job. Hired on and proving his worth, the refinery opted to retain his services. After many years, however, with a little unrest in the company, the union created uncertainty for the future.
Grasping at straws, Hinch called Cities Service headquarters in Texas, inquiring about various positions anywhere in the world. “We do have one, but you won’t like these conditions,” says the young lady on the phone. “Does it pay?” he asks her. She tells him it does, and it pays very well. “I’ll take it,” he says.
At this point, Hinch has acquired a few acres of land, built a home, lost it to a kitchen fire and had a first marriage dissolve.
He loads up his passport, work visa and a couple pairs of clothes and heads to Angola, Africa for his new assignment as maintenance supervisor. In this role he’d be overseeing any issues among the various drilling, rigs and platforms scattered across the country.
As a non-citizen, Hinch was only permitted to remain in the country 28 days each hitch. From the outpost locations, a helicopter would fly the crew back to Angola headquarters for their international departure flight to wherever the crew wanted to go during their downtime.
During a refueling stop, the pilot asked Hinch how he thought the helicopter was flying. “If it flies like one of my radio control helicopters, I would say you have a rotor head problem,” he replies. Hinch disembarks the helicopter, ready to spend his next 28 days of R&R in the Philippines.
It’s January 1, a new year as he arrives in the country. After settling into his hotel room, the jet lag fades and he strolls the streets, taking in the culture.
He stumbles across a flea market with a variety of goods, foods and keepsakes. One booth in particular catches his attention. There, hand carved out of wood, is the figure of an Asian man carrying a pair of wooden buckets, balanced on a branch across his back.
The woman, attempting to make a sale, suggests Hinch bring it home to his wife. “I don’t have a wife“ he replies. “Would you like to take one home with you?” she asks.
Mistakenly thinking she was talking about herself, Hinch declines, but she motions for him to come inside. There, in the back sitting on a barstool was the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life. At this point Hinch is 46 and he’s enamored with the 26 year old, Nang.
For the rest of his stay he spends every possible minute with her. The wheels in his head are turning, jumping far into the future. After only 11 days of courtship, with conversation happening through a translator, he asks for her hand in marriage.
With each 28 day hitch, Hinch returns to the Philippines and the two officially marry on August 12, 1983. Weeks were spent tying up every loose end, paying off the necessary bribes and clearing the path to get his young bride out of the country and home to Sulphur, Louisiana.
What followed was a learning curve for both Nang and her husband. The two had to navigate the language barrier, the age difference and a new culture for Nang. She’d never even left her village prior to moving with Hinch. The pair had their work cut out for them.
Back at work in Angola, Hinch is asked to remain at Cities Service headquarters in order to speak to the African president of operations before leaving the complex. Typically, this would mean something was wrong, and Hinch expected to be terminated or at the very least reprimanded.
Up to the 14th floor he went. He was greeted by Mr. Carver. “You told the French helicopter pilot the Dolphin likely had a rotor head problem,” Carver says. Hinch corrected, “No, I said if it flies like my radio control helicopters, I’d say you have rotor head problem.”
Carver pulls four bolts out of his pocket. One of the bolts shows extreme wear. “There was likely less than five minutes flying time before the worn pitch control bolt failed. That would’ve ended in tragedy,” Carver says.
Grateful for his insight, Carver promotes Hinch to head of aviation maintenance, effective immediately.
The work and travel obligations remain for Hinch and he has to trust his family and friends to help his wife acclimate while he is away. This includes shopping, learning how to drive and adapting to amenities that hadn’t been experienced before.
Eventually, the overseas contract is fulfilled and with it goes the lucrative income. Hinch went on to open his own appliance and electric repair business in Sulphur.
Meanwhile, a small group of model airplane guys are converting a generous portion of Hinch’s newly acquired 20 acres into an airstrip all while growing the LARKS model airplane flying club. The airstrip grew to include a clubhouse, several stations with overhead protection and a world of knowledge and help in the men and women entrenched in the hobby.
As the flying community grew, LARKS would host several competitive events, which drew professionals, hobbyists and spectators from around the world. Today, the airstrip is still very active with weekend events featuring warbird aircraft, jet aircraft, competition, helicopter, flying, and state of the art displays of model aviation.
Nang and Bo Hinch prepare to celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary this year. The pair now have three children, nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
There wasn’t an easy or clear cut answer as to why or how the airstrip was built. The best answer I got was that it came from a love of aviation and the desire to become a pilot. All of it happening while overcoming the setbacks and downturns that life threw at him. Despite it all, Hinch prevailed.
“I became a pilot, and I got to travel the world. Not exactly the way I had intended, but I did it,” he says. “Not bad for a one legged guy with a ninth grade education, eh?”
For more information about LARKS and upcoming flying dates visit larksrc.org
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