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Some look at Rollins’ frequent crashes — most recently on July 23 — and say his flights are a danger to himself and others. Rollins no longer has a driver’s license. He wears thick glasses and hearing aids, and he has an artificial right arm below the elbow because of a construction accident.
But Rollins isn’t going to quit, or even slow down. He sees himself as a role model for older people. “I wish there were more who would do what I do,” he said.
“He’s had a lot of accidents, car accidents, plane accidents. It’s a common thing to get phone calls,” said his wife, Leota. Even their five children and 12 grandchildren take the accidents in stride. “They laugh about it: ‘Oh, Grandpa had another wreck,” she said.
Rollins says that all his flying accidents were due to mechanical failures and weren’t his fault.
Dale Scobie, a flight instructor at Houston County Airport and a member of the airport committee, said that most of Rollins’ accidents have been operator error, however, and that Rollins won’t acknowledge that.
“He has enormous energy; I absolutely admire his energy,” Scobie said. But he expressed concern.
The Federal Aviation Administration has no jurisdiction over ultralight aircraft, said Elizabeth Isham Cory, FAA spokeswoman. “Generally, they (ultralights) are low and slow,” she said. “They are not aircraft.”
Rollins’ flying buddy, Donald Denny of La Crosse, who shares a hangar with Rollins, said his friend will fly again, or try to.
“That’s all he knows. You can’t stop him. ... I don’t think there’s much you can do about it. I think Charlie is going to do what he wants to do.”
When Houston County Chief Deputy Ken Frank heard Rollins had crashed again, he wasn’t surprised, though he also expressed concern about public safety. Rollins is a local legend, he said, known for “daredevil antics.” That is no exaggeration. Everyone in town seems to know him, know of him or has seen him riding his bike.
Former state Rep. Virgil Johnson of rural Caledonia has known Rollins for years. “He’s a goodhearted person, very athletic,” he said. “There’s not many things he hasn’t tried.” But Johnson said he’s not sure Rollins should keep flying.
Vern Freuchte, who has known Rollins for 55 years, in part because of flying, calls him “flamboyant, risk taking.” He said Rollins is “just seeking new adventures.”
Naomi Myhre, a waitress at Redwood Cafe, where Rollins often eats, said he has been known to talk with just about anyone about everything and anything, but mostly about airplanes. “I don’t think he would hurt a soul,” she said. “He’s just a little eccentric.”
Rollins enjoys the notoriety. He’s certainly not shy and willingly chatters about any subject, although his favorite topic is airplanes.
Rollins says he was born in Caledonia. His dad was a farmer, and he helped on the farm when everyone used horses and cars were rare. When he was 13 or 14, some guy landed a biplane at a nearby farm and needed to buy gas to get to La Crosse.
“That’s the first airplane I ever saw up close,” he said. “I thought it was something I wanted to get into.” He can’t explain that passion. Maybe it’s a love of being up there with the birds, or maybe it’s related to his fascination with Charles Lindbergh.
Before World War II, he worked at a Twin Cities airport. “You want to get up in the air, just get in the air,” he said. He’d love to tag along with other pilots.
In the war, he took to the air, but as a paratrooper stationed in the Pacific. Oddly, the man who would have so many accidents and close calls as a civilian was never injured as a soldier.
When he got out of the service, he bought a biplane with a 90-horsepower engine and reassembled it.
“One day, I thought ’Boy, a northwest wind, I’m going to fly this thing.“’ Without a lesson, he took off from a highway and flew around town. “I made a good enough landing. I bounced up a little and down and over a fence. The fence wasn’t much.”
And thus began the legend of Charlie Rollins, aviator.
He’s thinking of writing a book about his exploits.
“I would make a fortune,” he said. “All the wrecks I made were mechanical things that happened to the airplane, never my fault,” he said.
Then there were accidents on the ground. One day he was trying inline skating in a La Crosse parking lot. That was 1993, when he was near 70. He had a friend pull him behind a motorcycle.
“When we come to a corner, there was a car coming. I was afraid I was going to hit the car so let go.” He hit his head and was in the hospital five weeks, long enough to get sick of the food.
“I snuck out and walked downtown to McDonald’s and got some pancakes and coffee,” Rollins said. “Then I walked back to the hospital.”
When he got back, police were out looking for him.
Then he was downhill skiing at Mount La Crosse when he hit a fence or something and cut an ear.
He said he’s never been afraid. “You never have time to get afraid,” he said. “You just do this stuff. It comes on automatic.”
To make money, he worked for Trane in La Crosse for many years and then worked for a construction company. One day, brakes failed on the truck, and he got into an accident, losing part of his arm.
He lost his driver’s license because a doctor said he had a touch of dementia, said Leota, his wife. Leota had a stroke and needs a wheelchair. Both of the couple’s cars sit unused in the garage, and Charlie Rollins gets around on three bikes.
But Charlie Rollins said the doctor was wrong — he didn’t answer the doctor’s questions because his hearing aid was off and so he sounded disoriented to the doctor. He’s thinking of trying to get that license back.
Why he’s so active, he can’t say.
“You can’t find another person in town to do what I do,” he said.
When he watches TV, he does push-ups. He got down and demonstrated, giving a quick 15.
“To me, it’s nothing to do it at all,” he said. “I don’t even know I’m doing it. That keeps your body in good shape.”
Then he rolled over and began doing sit-ups.
He has also run several half-marathons, winning at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth in his age category, and he has climbed 14,110-foot Pike’s Peak several times.
He said he’s never felt old, never. “You’ve just got to keep doing the things you love to do,” she said.
Oddly, he got more active as he got older, his wife said.
“You never know why those things happen,” her husband said. “You just don’t like to sit down.”
“He was afraid of getting older,” his wife said.
In the hangar he shares with his friend, Donald Denny, of La Crosse, Rollins feels at home. It’s his place to dream.
The nose is smashed beyond repair on the red ultralight aircraft he crashed in June. Next to it is the Budweiser helmet he wore on the day of the crash; it’s the same one he wears when downhill skiing, he said.
He explains that he could take the engine out of that crashed craft, put it in another ultralight and fly that.
Watching him was Denny, who flies and skis with him. When Rollins said his accident count, including cars, was “10 or 15,” Denny said “closer to 15, Charlie.”
Denny has the Six Chuter, a form of ultralight with an inflatable wing to keep it up, and Rollins is thinking of flying again, sitting behind Denny. He can’t help it, he loves to fly, to be active. “If I had another airplane, I’d be flying it right now,” he said.
He can’t quit. “It’s the last thing in the world I want to do.”
Information from the Rochester Post-Bulletin
From Citizen Bob to "TO CITIZEN BOB" wrote on Dec 13, 2006 8:27 PM: