Burnt old crop sprayer "kind of sad to see"

ROYAL CITY - When Royal Flying Service owner Jock Warren lost an airplane to fire last month, he lost not only a piece of machinery but also an old friend.

The 1976 Thrush SR2 was the lone plane that came in the deal when Warren bought the Royal City division of Warden Air in 1977. From that time forward, it was the backbone of the Royal Flying Service (RFS).

"That is why it's kind of sad to see it sitting there," Warren said recently.

The SR2 won't be sitting there much longer. It will be trucked to a salvage yard in Idaho. Some parts, including the wing frame, are still usable. All that will be left are pictures and memories.

The plane was starting to leave the RFS runway for a spray job on the 14th when a cylinder cracked and the engine lost power. Pilot Jared Felder, 27, had enough experience and savvy to bring the plane down safely and exit just before it ignited. He was unhurt.

That Warren would feel melancholy about the old plane is fitting. He is a colorful character with quite a life story. Even his online handle, hootsmonjock, is colorful. The "hoots mon" means "what's happening" or "que pasa" in Scottish.

Warren has always been serious about his business - and his fun. Although he's been in America since the 1960s, he is still a British subject.

"I never knew I was not going back," he said.

Warren, 69, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised in Stirling. He earned a bachelor of science degree at the Glasgow University School of Agriculture.

After working a year on a sugar beet and grain farm in England, the still young and unmarried Warren decided to see the world in 1965. He also wanted to test his rugby skills internationally.

"I was a keen rugby player," he said

Warren visited Australia and New Zealand first. Then he went on to Singapore. He walked into pubs, had a beer, made new friends and found a game.

"I still play," he said. "I went to New Zealand in 2009 on an old boy tour. I'd like to go to Japan. They're really into old boy rugby."

After that first trip down under, Warren set sail for home and his folks for Christmas, working his passage on a freighter. He got as far as Vancouver, B.C. There flying caught his fancy.

Warren walked into Skyway Air Service at Langley in 1966 and put down $5,000 an aunt had left him when she died. He told the proprietor to keep it out of sight and apply it to flying lessons until it ran out.

"I finally did something smart," he said. "Five thousand dollars was a lot of money back then."

It was enough to get Warren a private license, a commercial license, an instrument rating and a float plane rating. He moved on to a job with a flying service at Port McNeil, at the east end of Vancouver Island, doing fueling and maintenance work but little flying.

"I had 200 hours of flying but couldn't get a job," he said.

So Warren turned to his degree field - agriculture. He could spray crops for a living. All he needed was some additional training.

Warren drove to Rolling Fork, Miss. in 1968 and paid $600 to learn to be an ag pilot. Still there was no job. So he considered military flying and went to the U.S. Army's recruiting office in Jackson.

There were two options. He could become a warrant officer and fly spotter planes or helicopters in Vietnam. Spotter plane shoot-downs were a priority for the Vietcong, and he didn't fly helicopters.

Warren bagged the military option and finally got a job in Abernathy, Tex., just north of Lubbock. He sprayed mostly milo with a Piper Super Cub. When that season ended, he rushed back to Vancouver.

"I didn't want to miss the rugby season," he said.

The breakthrough year came in 1969. On a tip from a Ritzville pilot he'd met in Mississippi, Warren hooked up with Sid Winzler's Warden Air at Warden, fueling and loading spray.

A month later, Warren started flying for Winzler's assistant, Jack Carr, out of Vista Field in Kennewick. The next year he started flying out of the site that is now RFS.

After each spray season, Warren went back to Canada for rugby, and everything went smoothly, until 1974. Crossing the border that year to return to work, he was stopped and asked for a draft card.

Warren explained he was not a citizen but needed to get to work. So he was asked for his green card.

Warren didn't have one. He'd been working illegally in the U.S., it was discovered, and he was not allowed to cross. In danger of losing his employment, he had to scramble to get a green card.

Winzler helped. He told authorities he needed Warren, and that he would not be easy to replace. Still the process went slowly until Winzler remembered that political clout can help. He enlisted the aid of powerful U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson, and Warren had his card in May.

When Warren came to Warden Air Royal City, he came with a special offer from Winzler. He would be paid 30 percent of gross, instead of the customary 20 percent for a pilot, if he hustled new business. He hustled.

"I knew what I had when I bought (the business)," he said.

In 1977, Warren bought a 275-acre farm five miles west of Royal City, the 68-acre Warden Air Property and business and the SR2 and married Amy Para of Othello.

Warren and Amy sold the farm in 1992 when they divorced amicably. She kept just a small portion of it, and he built an apartment atop the RFS maintenance shop, where he still lives.

"If a rich guy came by tomorrow and made an offer, I'd probably be out of it," Warren said.

That would be just about in time for the next rugby season. Old boy rugby, that is.