Skilled draftsman loved flying, but becoming a geezer beat it all
By Kimberly Matas
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.07.2008

Larry Cowell was a geezer and proud of it.
He said as much in the autobiography he wrote for family members and friends, titled "How I Became a Geezer."
As the only child of Harold, a bookkeeper, and Hannah, a nurse, Cowell thought it was important to record his family history for his children, grandchildren and generations beyond.
He recounted his Midwestern childhood, learning to fly airplanes at 16, flying reconnaissance missions during World War II, a bicycle trip from Detroit to Mexico City during college, starting a family, building two airplanes in his Midtown Tucson backyard, his 26 years as a draftsman and designer at Kitt Peak National Observatory, and traveling the world.
Copies of Cowell's autobiography were handed out during his memorial service last week. Cowell died on July 12 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 84.
Cowell had long been fascinated by air travel. He took his first flight at age 14 in Michigan. He had saved a few bucks from his paper route and a job as a golf caddie. He and a friend hitchhiked to Pontiac Municipal Airport and paid to go up in a two-seater open-cockpit plane, with Cowell sitting on his friend's lap so they'd both fit.
After that, Cowell was hooked. He signed up for flying lessons, paying the $7-an-hour fee first with his paper-route money and later cleaning planes in exchange for lessons.
He made his first solo flight on Nov. 9, 1940, an event that left Cowell feeling like "the happiest 16-year-old in the world," he wrote in his autobiography.
His skills served him well during World War II, when he enlisted in the Army Air Forces and was tapped to fly reconnaissance missions over Europe.
On his first mission over Germany, he looked down on the city of Cologne to see anti-aircraft shells bursting all around.
"It was frightening, but later I was to get used to this. In 51 missions, I don't think any of them were without some anti-aircraft fire," he wrote. "I didn't survive the war because I was smart; I was just lucky."
Cowell used money from the GI Bill to go to Wayne State University in Michigan and earn a bachelor's degree in liberal arts.
During the late 1940s, Cowell became involved in politics, campaigning for unsuccessful Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace. He met his future wife, "a pretty little blonde named Betty," while painting signs at campaign headquarters in downtown Pontiac. After graduation, Cowell tried to make a living as a writer, but his rejection letters didn't pay the bills.
A friend who was working at Pontiac Millwork Co. as a draftsman knew Cowell had an aptitude for drawing and got him a job. There, Cowell learned that he liked to design things.
"I loved the drawing, and even more, I loved seeing things being built that I had helped to fashion," he wrote.
When Betty's health began to fail, the Cowell family packed up, intent on moving to a warmer climate in California. They made it as far as Tucson and fell in love with the desert city. The timing was perfect. Kitt Peak National Observatory was being built, and the chief engineer needed draftsmen to work in the Tucson office. It was a job that would last 26 years.
"I worked a lot with Larry doing the same thing — a designer. I had a pretty good idea about his skills, which were exceptional," said Arden Petri, who worked at Kitt Peak for 33 years.
Cowell's job, said former Kitt Peak electrical engineer Vern Russell, was drawing "the physical parts of instruments and telescopes, the metal that makes up an instrument. He would draw up what it should look like. He was very good at it."
Cowell's design skills and his easygoing personality endeared him to colleagues.
"Larry didn't have any enemies. None. He put up with people I wouldn't put up with; they were nincompoops," Dale Schrage said.
"He was the top guy. Whenever you had an important instrument, he was in charge of it," Schrage said. "Larry produced the conceptual design, the drawing for it. His contributions to the technologists were very great. He drew a lot of great instruments, and they all worked."
One thing he and Cowell didn't see eye to eye on was air travel. Schrage refused to fly in the wood-framed, two-seat, open-cockpit plane Cowell built in his Midtown backyard.
"I have a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering," Schrage said. "I don't go up in anything that's not made out of metal and doesn't have more than one engine."
But Petri finally did brave the friendly skies with Cowell.
"I went up with him one time, and that was fun," Petri said. "He let me take the controls for a while. We flew all over Avra Valley."
The first of two planes Cowell built was a Pietenpol Aircamper. He began construction in 1969. Working on the plane in his spare time, he estimated it took about 1,500 hours to construct at a cost of $2,500.
Cowell took his first flight in the Pietenpol in 1976. The low-key man described the flight as "uneventful" in a journal he kept of the plane's metamorphosis from a pile of lumber to a flying machine.
Cowell later built a biplane in his backyard.
He and Betty had three children. David and Jenny grew up in Michigan. Mitzi Cowell, a local musician, was born in Tucson. She was one of the early passengers in the Pietenpol.
"There's something about being supported by the wind. It was never scary to me as a child," Mitzi said. "He would have fun with you. He would do some kind of fun turns that would make your stomach wind up in your mouth."
In retirement, Cowell traveled the world with his wife. When Betty died in 1992, Cowell traveled with his children. In 1994, he remarried. He and his wife, Joan, also began globe-trotting, and Cowell continued tinkering with his plane and taking flights over Tucson.
"He had an attitude that anything you put your mind to you can do," Mitzi said.
Yet in the closing chapter of his autobiography, the modest Cowell attributed his success to good fortune, more so than personal fortitude:
"So, this is how I became a geezer. It wasn't through any talent I have. It was luck. It seems to me that I have had more good luck than anyone else that I have ever known."
● To suggest someone for Life Stories, contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191. Read more from this reporter at go.azstarnet.com/lastwrites.

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