A Flight Breaks Forth In Song
May 26, 1978
Small aircraft and small airports make a pretty good combination for going rapidly from point to point. And when that's done and music results, it's a memorable flight worth a logbook story, because I like airplanes and airports, and I like music. On this day, a local barbershop quartet needed to get together with their coach to rehearse for a major competition. The group chartered a flight in our Aztec to an outlying Minneapolis-area airport near to where they needed to go. They could easily do this in an evening - impossible on airline schedules.
Some afternoon building thunderstorms needed to be dodged on the way into the terminal area, making for an interesting challenge and a few bumps. Once on the ground at the destination, with the airplane secured, the group invited me to come along with them to observe the rehearsal. This invite was gladly accepted, and I spent the evening listening, watching and greatly enjoying some great barbershop singing. This instead of the usual boredom twiddling my thumbs in an FBO's transient pilot lounge.
The quartet I flew that night was called the "Formalities", as noted in my logbook. I don't know how they did in their competition, and I can't find any reference to them on Google, but this was before the Internet, so that's not surprising. It is recorded in my logbook. I know they existed, and I know this happened. The picture below is just of some unknown generic barbershop quartet performing. A barbershop quartet is a singing group, usually of four persons, often dressed in stripped jackets, that sings a cappella in four-part harmony, mostly from a standard repertoire.
11-26-2022
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References for Non-Pilots:
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