TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Wild About His 'Harry'

ADVERTISEMENT

By JENNA JOHNSON, The Washington Post

Published: January 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - St. Mary's County Regional Airport is home to a fleet of single-engine Cessnas, many of them owned by amateur pilots and parked in tidy rows just off the runway.

But in a hangar at the edge of the grounds sits a Harrier, a hulking jet that takes off and lands vertically, cruises at speeds in excess of 600 mph and is similar to the Marines' primary attack aircraft.

That is Art Nalls' plane.

Nalls, a 53-year-old former Marine test pilot who made a fortune in real estate, has turned flying into an extraordinarily expensive hobby. He believes that his newest acquisition - the Harry, as he calls it - is the world's only privately owned, flyable Harrier.

Although Nalls wouldn't say how much he paid for the plane, he said fuel alone costs about $75 for every minute in the air.

But in jets, Nalls says he has found a fountain of youth.

"When I am up there, it's just like I'm 25 again," he said.

He and his planes are regular topics of conversation at the small airport in southern Maryland, a stomping ground for retired military pilots, some of whom trained at the nearby Patuxent River Naval Air Station, one of only two military test pilot schools in the country.

Ho-Hum Second Flight

On a recent morning, in a lounge facing the runway, pilots swapped stories about Nalls' latest adventure: Problems with the Harry's hydraulic system forced an emergency landing at the military base in November, on its second flight.

Since he couldn't fly it back, Nalls had the jet hooked to a pickup truck and towed nearly eight miles to the airport, escorted by police cars. He sat in the cockpit, dressed as Santa Claus.

"Ho, ho, ho!" Nalls bellowed, waving at truckers and other motorists as the jet limped along Route 235, narrowly missing traffic lights and straddling a median as it turned onto Airport Road.

Such antics explain why Nalls has earned a reputation as a cowboy, a multimillionaire fond of indulging idiosyncratic interests. In the 1970s, he held a Guinness record for building and riding the world's smallest rideable bicycle, which was less than 5 inches tall.

Nalls, who was born and raised in Alexandria, Va., learned to fly as a midshipman at the Naval Academy. On his second flight, he was flipping loops and executing rolls.

In 1985, he was the only Marine to attend the test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Nalls spent most of his career in Harriers, including an AV-8A that he launched off ship decks more than 400 times.

After he retired, he turned to real estate and development, buying and renting apartments, houses and commercial buildings in Virginia and Washington, where he lives with his wife, Pat. In 2001, Nalls began to buy jets.

First there was the Russian Yak-3, a jet he calls Red Heat. Then came a Czech Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros, an "absolute rocket ship" that he refers to as the Black Jet.

But what Nalls really wanted was a Harrier. Getting one from the Marines was out of the question because the Corps' retired Harriers are dismantled.

Two years ago, Nalls found a British dealer selling a Sea Harrier FA 2 that had been used by the Royal Navy.

Nalls flew to England. The plane's engine wasn't working and its wiring was a tangled mess, but he bought it. A similar plane in working condition was once valued at more than $20 million.

Volunteers Help With Work

At the St. Mary's airport, a crew of mostly volunteer mechanics and plane enthusiasts brought the Harrier back to life, cobbling together parts from eBay and elsewhere.

Nalls prepared for the maiden flight in simulators - after all, it had been 16 years since he had made a vertical landing.

On Nov. 10, he successfully flew the Harry, lifting off and then landing from a hover at the St. Mary's airport.

The next day brought the emergency landing at the naval base.

Nalls hopes to fix the problem in the next two months and have the Harry back in the sky soon. Until then, he is left to fly his other two jets.

So it was that on a recent Saturday he pulled on thick boots and zipped up an olive flight suit decorated with badges he earned as a test pilot and with his call name, Kaos. He jumped into the cockpit of the Czech plane and strapped himself into a parachute-packed ejection seat.

The glass dome came down, sealing him inside. Nalls adjusted his headset.

"Ready to rock and roll?" he asked.

Then came the speed.

The runway ran out, and the jet was hoisted into the air, swept up in the wind and blown away like a dandelion. It drifted higher and higher, then tilted to one side, opening up the view below.

He sat perfectly still as the world rushed around him in a swirl.

"I love it out here," he murmured into his headset. "I love this plane."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT