denverpilot
Tied Down
Larry wasn’t a member here but I felt compelled to make a little post.
https://www.horancares.com/obituary/JamesLarry-Camden
(Since it’s that era, no, not Covid. Cancer. Enough said about that.)
Larry was my CFI along with his friend Paul for all of my ratings after my Private/Instrument.
Multi/Commercial and CFI stuff.
My first intro to him was literally looking up schools and instructors and shopping around. I saw his web page said Continental and being a former Continental rampie myself and my first CFI being a long time Continental guy, I texted him. “Ever heard of this guy? Has a school here and I’m thinking about doing my multi with him.”
I get back a note, “Hell yes. Flew with him on the DC-10. He’s broken in a lot of First Officers. You’ll be fine. He’ll teach you stuff you didn’t know you needed to learn.”
Hahaha. And ... he did.
What I can add that isn’t in the obit... there was a photo of a DC-2 on his office desk. He said it was his first paid flying gig.
He went to Purdue and had earned his A&P straight out of school back then. Unknown time later he was an AI.
Had a pile of type ratings. Needed three little green cards to print all of them on.
Flew for Continental forever. Finished his career there on the triple 7. Then started a flight school in “retirement” in 2001.
Had photos from all sorts of local famous folks on his wall thanking him for teaching them or someone.
One was a signed photo from the Kings thanking him for surprising them with teaching a staff member of theirs a rating on some time off that she took. Ha. Went on vacation from King Schools, came back with a new rating.
Had a few “CFI of the Year” awards from the Denver FSDO on the wall too.
Had a bejillion hours. Over 10,000 just teaching.
His airplanes were pristine. The whole AI thing. He spent countless hours long after flight students went home, maintaining them. I can’t think of any other rentals in three decades that I enjoyed flying more.
And I — of course — was STILL the guy that things would break on because... well, that’s just me. When we cancelled multiple rides in the twin because of the silly Sandel he got so mad at it and was about to replace it with a G5 just to make the insanity stop.
He knew working airplanes were his bread and butter and didn’t do minimum maintenance on them like some rental places (most?) I’ve flown at.
But besides all of that — a natural teacher. Well who knows. Probably just a ton of experience doing it.
Knew when to just sit there and say nothing and crack a grin as he watched you dig your own hole. Then a corrective word — when it was right close to getting out of hand. I think he may have touched the controls (other than demos) three times in more ratings than that.
Unflappable. Always ready to be PIC if you decided you weren’t gonna do it today. Haha.
I remember vividly him letting me learn the hard way how much a twin will sink on approach if you decide to become a throttle jockey. I yanked way too much power off when high and I saw nothing but one eyebrow go up. A few second later down in the weeds with the tops of the approach lights getting way too close for comfort he looks over and says, “Get. It. UP!” That’s all he had to say.
And he spent a lot of time making sure I knew exactly how both twins and students in both twins and singles would attempt to kill me. Haha. He had whole binders of safety reports on every airplane type the school flew and had dug in and analyzed the real accidents seen most commonly in each. He took nothing for granted nor believed any of the various instructional “old wives tales”, he went hunting for proof of them or debunked them.
Because he was a mechanic he knew systems cold. He’d find cutaways or make stuff to show us pilots what was really going on behind the cowl. Or if you stopped by while he had one of the airplanes apart he’d show you.
I did my best to help him with a couple ancient office computers that were sometimes cantankerous, and laughed at his industrial sized stash of cheese and peanut butter crackers from Costco — the lunch staple and flight bag snack of busy CFIs and IT nerds, the world over.
Always smiling even when circumstances were just kicking his butt, always professional but could get a good (justified) rant or two out of him once he got to know you, about bad teaching methods, or stuff pilots “believe that just aren’t true”.
We had kept in touch as both of our medical situations went south. I was sad for him when he had to close the school down, but like any old Captain he simply made a decision when the medical stuff got out of hand — “So that’s done.”
Will miss him. Taught me a bunch of stuff I won’t forget.
I’ll never have the hours or experiences he had, but I can learn from and always assume his demeanor and do things right.
Thanks Larry. RIP.
https://www.horancares.com/obituary/JamesLarry-Camden
(Since it’s that era, no, not Covid. Cancer. Enough said about that.)
Larry was my CFI along with his friend Paul for all of my ratings after my Private/Instrument.
Multi/Commercial and CFI stuff.
My first intro to him was literally looking up schools and instructors and shopping around. I saw his web page said Continental and being a former Continental rampie myself and my first CFI being a long time Continental guy, I texted him. “Ever heard of this guy? Has a school here and I’m thinking about doing my multi with him.”
I get back a note, “Hell yes. Flew with him on the DC-10. He’s broken in a lot of First Officers. You’ll be fine. He’ll teach you stuff you didn’t know you needed to learn.”
Hahaha. And ... he did.
What I can add that isn’t in the obit... there was a photo of a DC-2 on his office desk. He said it was his first paid flying gig.
He went to Purdue and had earned his A&P straight out of school back then. Unknown time later he was an AI.
Had a pile of type ratings. Needed three little green cards to print all of them on.
Flew for Continental forever. Finished his career there on the triple 7. Then started a flight school in “retirement” in 2001.
Had photos from all sorts of local famous folks on his wall thanking him for teaching them or someone.
One was a signed photo from the Kings thanking him for surprising them with teaching a staff member of theirs a rating on some time off that she took. Ha. Went on vacation from King Schools, came back with a new rating.
Had a few “CFI of the Year” awards from the Denver FSDO on the wall too.
Had a bejillion hours. Over 10,000 just teaching.
His airplanes were pristine. The whole AI thing. He spent countless hours long after flight students went home, maintaining them. I can’t think of any other rentals in three decades that I enjoyed flying more.
And I — of course — was STILL the guy that things would break on because... well, that’s just me. When we cancelled multiple rides in the twin because of the silly Sandel he got so mad at it and was about to replace it with a G5 just to make the insanity stop.
He knew working airplanes were his bread and butter and didn’t do minimum maintenance on them like some rental places (most?) I’ve flown at.
But besides all of that — a natural teacher. Well who knows. Probably just a ton of experience doing it.
Knew when to just sit there and say nothing and crack a grin as he watched you dig your own hole. Then a corrective word — when it was right close to getting out of hand. I think he may have touched the controls (other than demos) three times in more ratings than that.
Unflappable. Always ready to be PIC if you decided you weren’t gonna do it today. Haha.
I remember vividly him letting me learn the hard way how much a twin will sink on approach if you decide to become a throttle jockey. I yanked way too much power off when high and I saw nothing but one eyebrow go up. A few second later down in the weeds with the tops of the approach lights getting way too close for comfort he looks over and says, “Get. It. UP!” That’s all he had to say.
And he spent a lot of time making sure I knew exactly how both twins and students in both twins and singles would attempt to kill me. Haha. He had whole binders of safety reports on every airplane type the school flew and had dug in and analyzed the real accidents seen most commonly in each. He took nothing for granted nor believed any of the various instructional “old wives tales”, he went hunting for proof of them or debunked them.
Because he was a mechanic he knew systems cold. He’d find cutaways or make stuff to show us pilots what was really going on behind the cowl. Or if you stopped by while he had one of the airplanes apart he’d show you.
I did my best to help him with a couple ancient office computers that were sometimes cantankerous, and laughed at his industrial sized stash of cheese and peanut butter crackers from Costco — the lunch staple and flight bag snack of busy CFIs and IT nerds, the world over.
Always smiling even when circumstances were just kicking his butt, always professional but could get a good (justified) rant or two out of him once he got to know you, about bad teaching methods, or stuff pilots “believe that just aren’t true”.
We had kept in touch as both of our medical situations went south. I was sad for him when he had to close the school down, but like any old Captain he simply made a decision when the medical stuff got out of hand — “So that’s done.”
Will miss him. Taught me a bunch of stuff I won’t forget.
I’ll never have the hours or experiences he had, but I can learn from and always assume his demeanor and do things right.
Thanks Larry. RIP.
Although I recognize his name, I never met him.
