While Don Axinn came relatively late to writing (he published his first book of poetry at the age of 49,) he remembers his first plane ride at two or three, and watching his father take off, land, and crash at the age of nine. He tells of the glory days of flying, when the very thought of soaring over the fields and beaches of Long Island, New York stimulated fantasies of romance and excitement. Since taking his first lesson at 15, he has flown as many as 60 different types of aircraft. Some of Don's fondest memories involve flying over a green and largely unpopulated Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
In the late 20s and early 30s, Long Island's Roosevelt Field became the takeoff point for such aviation luminaries as Richard Byrd, Amelia Earhart, Elinor Smith, and Wiley Post. Don grew up admiring and sometimes emulating them. By the late 40's, new homes swallowed up what used to be impromptu landing strips in Syosset, Commack, Smithtown, or Fitzmaurice Field in Massapequa - fields he landed on before they closed. Axinn remembers, "The fairways of the Old Westbury Golf Course next to Unit No. 2 sometimes became emergency landing places for inexperienced pilots or planes with unreliable engines. On the north side, the Rhodes farm grew crops sprinkled here and there with wheels and parts of undercarriages torn off in forced landings!" He now lands his Boeing Stearman biplane, 1952 L-19A Birddog and Cessna 182T at his strip in Weybridge, Vermont, at Spruce Creek in Daytona Beach, or at Northeast Air Park on Long Island
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