Dave, the university professor, made arrangements for his WWU sabbatical. Everyone at the university was excited for him and made every effort to cover for him while he was away for two years, especially his long-time geology associate, Scott Babcock.
Scott was the one that rented Dave his cabin above Rosario Beach. He was a light in Dave's future remembrance. (More about that later)
Dave was further excited about his sabbatical because he was invited to be a visiting professor at the University of Jordan in Amman. There was so much he could impart to the students. He looked forward to flying them around their country as he did with his students at WWU.
He continued to fly airshows around the Northwest and to make plans for organizing the aerobatic team in Jordan. He aspired to make it one of the finest. The King christened them the name, the Royal Jordanian Falcons. To that end, he proposed a joint collaboration with a fellow aerobat, Steve Wolf. The King agreed. Dave contacted Steve, who with great enthusiasm, did several loops to celebrate, I'm sure!
Steve joined the team with a terrific reputation as an outstanding aerobat. He is known for being capable, patient, and an all-around good guy. He built a Super Pitts called “Samson,” with which he won first place in the vertical climb category at the Russian International Air Competition.
With a successful career as an aerobatic performer and aircraft builder, Steve was inducted into the ICAS Hall of Fame. At the same time, in 2019, his Wolf Pitts Pro 2 made it's way to the Smithsonian Institute.
Steve agreed to join the team and began preparing his family for a big, but adventurous, move to the land of magic flying carpets.
Rock Rats
Dave was determined to make me one of his geology students. Natural science was a strong suit of mine, so, as his guest, I eagerly joined up with the rest of his geology students as we hiked and poked around Washington State.
He was an excellent communicator and loved sharing his knowledge with anyone who showed the slightest bit of interest.
Dave’s students became his closest friends as they trekked across the Cascade Mountains and the arid Columbia Basin in central Washington.
In the Great Basin, we examined the immense potholes and dry waterfalls left by the North American glaciers during the Pleistocene ice age.
Scott was the one that rented Dave his cabin above Rosario Beach. He was a light in Dave's future remembrance. (More about that later)
Dave was further excited about his sabbatical because he was invited to be a visiting professor at the University of Jordan in Amman. There was so much he could impart to the students. He looked forward to flying them around their country as he did with his students at WWU.
He continued to fly airshows around the Northwest and to make plans for organizing the aerobatic team in Jordan. He aspired to make it one of the finest. The King christened them the name, the Royal Jordanian Falcons. To that end, he proposed a joint collaboration with a fellow aerobat, Steve Wolf. The King agreed. Dave contacted Steve, who with great enthusiasm, did several loops to celebrate, I'm sure!
Steve joined the team with a terrific reputation as an outstanding aerobat. He is known for being capable, patient, and an all-around good guy. He built a Super Pitts called “Samson,” with which he won first place in the vertical climb category at the Russian International Air Competition.
With a successful career as an aerobatic performer and aircraft builder, Steve was inducted into the ICAS Hall of Fame. At the same time, in 2019, his Wolf Pitts Pro 2 made it's way to the Smithsonian Institute.
Steve agreed to join the team and began preparing his family for a big, but adventurous, move to the land of magic flying carpets.
Rock Rats
Dave was determined to make me one of his geology students. Natural science was a strong suit of mine, so, as his guest, I eagerly joined up with the rest of his geology students as we hiked and poked around Washington State.
He was an excellent communicator and loved sharing his knowledge with anyone who showed the slightest bit of interest.
Dave’s students became his closest friends as they trekked across the Cascade Mountains and the arid Columbia Basin in central Washington.
In the Great Basin, we examined the immense potholes and dry waterfalls left by the North American glaciers during the Pleistocene ice age.
Dave Atop Hogback, Moved by Glacier -
Dry Falls Cut by Receding Glaciers, Eastern Washington
Dave pointed out that more than a million and a half years ago, a great sheet of ice spread over North America. As it advanced, it became a huge bulldozer that pushed tremendous boulders ahead of it, displacing them from their bedrock hundreds of miles away.
When the planet warmed again and the great glaciers retreated to the north, it became a giant rake dragging huge boulders and scarring the landscape with further evidence of its crushing presence. They left behind immense potholes, landscape impressions that the unknowing might think to be impacts of meteors. The melting glacial waters thundered over thousands of waterfalls; some a hundred times bigger than the great Niagara.
As I sat on the rim of the biggest of these, Dry Falls, I was impressed by the three-and-a-half-mile chute that dropped four hundred feet over vertical cliffs of basalt.
No water spills over the falls now. They are simply a dry testament of a magnificent past. The landscape, alone, speaks as an eyewitness of the great ice age event.
As we overlooked the enormous expanse, I allowed myself to be mentally carried back to a time when a vast lushness of giant ferns and palm fronds covered the region. Then, as I started imagining the huge beasts that likely inhabited the area, I found myself running back to my present state of mind.
Dave and his rock rats were more than willing to scurry around boulders and cliffs to gain a better understanding of Earth. Imagine their deep contemplations as they sat around a campfire under a brilliant starry night sky, a sky that has not changed but a twinkle since Earth started taking shape.
On more than one occasion, Professor Dave Rahm received the Teacher of the Year Award. The love of teaching was his gift. His desire to teach was more commanding than his glittering ego. He was the kind of man who left plenty of room for others to shine.
To that end, a geology scholarship, named in Dave’s honor at the University of Western Washington, funds the seed money for other young geologists to further their research.
What he gave to me was a great appreciation for the structural genesis of the state of Washington, from its magnificent volcanoes to the displaced hogback monoliths of the glacial ice age.
One of his credits, remembered with a great deal of humor, was the discovery of what created the miniature terrace features along the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington. Why the tiny terracing had stumped geologists for so long is a mystery in itself.
Try as the scholars might, they could not agree on what had caused the ring-like terraces around the hills. True, the melting of the glacial ice had created gigantic waves that left ripple marks on the terrain, but that evidence could not be supported as the cause for the miniature terrace markings.
Dave had a good laugh each time he told the story.
He and his rock rats climbed the hills and snooped around for days. Then they noticed the one common denominator present on all the hills. It was, of all things, sheep droppings! Ah, the answer made itself quite clear. He accurately concluded that sheep meandering around the same hillsides, year after year, created the formations. Hail Master Rahm!
While teaching at Washington State University in Pullman, Dave chartered an airplane and a pilot to take him and a few of his students up for a better view of the clearly exposed glacial formations. That did it. On that single occasion, the flying bug bit him. From that time on, he seized every opportunity to fly.
He lived life to the fullest, and nothing punctuated it more that doing loops and spins in the wide-open sky. As with his many other accomplishments, he totally gave himself to the art of flying.
A new star emerged on the aerobatic flying circuit, “The Flying Professor.”
He started flying the airshow circuit on weekends and joined the ranks of an entirely new class of maverick adventurers. It was from those independent, self-styled barnstormers that he picked up the cliché, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” Time and experience would define “The Flying Professor’s” style.
His signature aircraft, the Bücher Jungmann, was designed in 1933, by Carl Bücher. It was a two-seat training aircraft for the German Luftwaffe of World War II. Dave Tatom, a gifted artist, restored the aircraft. After applying several coats of black dope on the aircraft’s fabric, he emblazoned a gold starburst on the Bücher’s upper wing and stamped it as royalty with the golden crest of a fighting lion on its vertical stabilizer.
"Free Spirit," as the Bücher was christened, would be obliged to have its power harnessed by Captain Rahm. Tamed by his master's strong, yet gentle and skillful hands, the Bücher, like no other air weapon, would make its mark in the sky.
Dave quickly became a favorite performer at airshows. He had the gift of brilliantly creating a flowing ballet in the sky. For his finale, he would dramatically bow with a breathtaking Lomchevak maneuver.
In a Lomchevak maneuver, the mighty Bücher climbs vertically until its strength and power completely dissipate. Then, it slightly slips backward on its tail as if in a faint suddenly, tumbles out of control. As it nears perilously close to the ground, the black beauty breaks free from the deathward dive and ignites with raging firepower to claw its way free from the ensnarement of gravity.
After each performance, “The Flying Professor” would taxi slowly in front of a most admiring crowd, benevolently waving. One could all but see the diamonds glistening from his broad smile. He would then lead his tethered lion to the winner’s circle, jump energetically from the plane, and appreciatively clasp the many enthusiastic hands reaching out to him.
He always generously gave a fan the ride of a lifetime in his open-cockpit biplane. With great cheers and beaming smiles from the crowd, he’d take off with his eager passenger to do a few more loops, spins, and snap rolls out in the wild blue yonder.
When the planet warmed again and the great glaciers retreated to the north, it became a giant rake dragging huge boulders and scarring the landscape with further evidence of its crushing presence. They left behind immense potholes, landscape impressions that the unknowing might think to be impacts of meteors. The melting glacial waters thundered over thousands of waterfalls; some a hundred times bigger than the great Niagara.
As I sat on the rim of the biggest of these, Dry Falls, I was impressed by the three-and-a-half-mile chute that dropped four hundred feet over vertical cliffs of basalt.
No water spills over the falls now. They are simply a dry testament of a magnificent past. The landscape, alone, speaks as an eyewitness of the great ice age event.
As we overlooked the enormous expanse, I allowed myself to be mentally carried back to a time when a vast lushness of giant ferns and palm fronds covered the region. Then, as I started imagining the huge beasts that likely inhabited the area, I found myself running back to my present state of mind.
Dave and his rock rats were more than willing to scurry around boulders and cliffs to gain a better understanding of Earth. Imagine their deep contemplations as they sat around a campfire under a brilliant starry night sky, a sky that has not changed but a twinkle since Earth started taking shape.
On more than one occasion, Professor Dave Rahm received the Teacher of the Year Award. The love of teaching was his gift. His desire to teach was more commanding than his glittering ego. He was the kind of man who left plenty of room for others to shine.
To that end, a geology scholarship, named in Dave’s honor at the University of Western Washington, funds the seed money for other young geologists to further their research.
What he gave to me was a great appreciation for the structural genesis of the state of Washington, from its magnificent volcanoes to the displaced hogback monoliths of the glacial ice age.
One of his credits, remembered with a great deal of humor, was the discovery of what created the miniature terrace features along the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington. Why the tiny terracing had stumped geologists for so long is a mystery in itself.
Try as the scholars might, they could not agree on what had caused the ring-like terraces around the hills. True, the melting of the glacial ice had created gigantic waves that left ripple marks on the terrain, but that evidence could not be supported as the cause for the miniature terrace markings.
Dave had a good laugh each time he told the story.
He and his rock rats climbed the hills and snooped around for days. Then they noticed the one common denominator present on all the hills. It was, of all things, sheep droppings! Ah, the answer made itself quite clear. He accurately concluded that sheep meandering around the same hillsides, year after year, created the formations. Hail Master Rahm!
While teaching at Washington State University in Pullman, Dave chartered an airplane and a pilot to take him and a few of his students up for a better view of the clearly exposed glacial formations. That did it. On that single occasion, the flying bug bit him. From that time on, he seized every opportunity to fly.
He lived life to the fullest, and nothing punctuated it more that doing loops and spins in the wide-open sky. As with his many other accomplishments, he totally gave himself to the art of flying.
A new star emerged on the aerobatic flying circuit, “The Flying Professor.”
He started flying the airshow circuit on weekends and joined the ranks of an entirely new class of maverick adventurers. It was from those independent, self-styled barnstormers that he picked up the cliché, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” Time and experience would define “The Flying Professor’s” style.
His signature aircraft, the Bücher Jungmann, was designed in 1933, by Carl Bücher. It was a two-seat training aircraft for the German Luftwaffe of World War II. Dave Tatom, a gifted artist, restored the aircraft. After applying several coats of black dope on the aircraft’s fabric, he emblazoned a gold starburst on the Bücher’s upper wing and stamped it as royalty with the golden crest of a fighting lion on its vertical stabilizer.
"Free Spirit," as the Bücher was christened, would be obliged to have its power harnessed by Captain Rahm. Tamed by his master's strong, yet gentle and skillful hands, the Bücher, like no other air weapon, would make its mark in the sky.
Dave quickly became a favorite performer at airshows. He had the gift of brilliantly creating a flowing ballet in the sky. For his finale, he would dramatically bow with a breathtaking Lomchevak maneuver.
In a Lomchevak maneuver, the mighty Bücher climbs vertically until its strength and power completely dissipate. Then, it slightly slips backward on its tail as if in a faint suddenly, tumbles out of control. As it nears perilously close to the ground, the black beauty breaks free from the deathward dive and ignites with raging firepower to claw its way free from the ensnarement of gravity.
After each performance, “The Flying Professor” would taxi slowly in front of a most admiring crowd, benevolently waving. One could all but see the diamonds glistening from his broad smile. He would then lead his tethered lion to the winner’s circle, jump energetically from the plane, and appreciatively clasp the many enthusiastic hands reaching out to him.
He always generously gave a fan the ride of a lifetime in his open-cockpit biplane. With great cheers and beaming smiles from the crowd, he’d take off with his eager passenger to do a few more loops, spins, and snap rolls out in the wild blue yonder.