OLD LYME — Quentin Dale Plumleigh, pilot, United States veteran retiree and beloved family man left this earth for a better place in early May.
He was known as Dale to his family and friends, and all knew him as congenial, smiling and open to everyone, especially those who were drawn to his personal experiences as a pilot for over seven decades. He began his aviation career in the Midwest after World War II when airplanes became necessities for farmers surveying their crops and cattle. Over the course of his career as pilot and instructor, he logged hours in every make of Cessna airplane, including the Cessna Citation models I, V, VII and the Citation X, which flew at just under Mach I. He accrued many thousands of hours in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, and Strategic Air Command (SAC), specifically captaining the B-52.
He is mourned by his loving wife Maureen of Old Lyme, her sister and brother, her daughter and her family; his children Deborah, Gerald, Robert, Teresa and Charles, their children and grandchildren who all reside in Texas, aviation students and fellow pilots, friends, neighbors and caregivers.
He now embodies the poem High Flight by John Gillespie Magee:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Plans for a memorial are postponed because of the current health crisis.