The passion to fly, to be one with the sky, to roam where onlyGod intended birds and angels to be, has few equals. A smittenvictim visualizes melding with a craft as it transverses boundlessskies, rising and rushing to and from mother earth, in a grandtour of her greatest vistas and breathless majesty.
My first wing…
My first flight began as a loss-leader Discovery Flight. Thetemperature hovered at freezing with the sky layered in curtainsof blues and silver-whites. The airport just north of New YorkCity pulsated with considerable aircraft traffic, construction,and a dizzy pattern of vehicles rushing underfoot. Early for myscheduled appointment, the receptionist ushered me into a door-less,preflight planning room. I passed the time attempting to readthe map pinned to the wall while avoiding fresh coffee stainson the table. I had located several landmarks, that were needlesslyobscured by acronym, after acronym, after acronym, when a verydisgruntled flight instructor began leveling a complaint at herboss in the hallway. The boss listened as the instructor’s voicebroached tears. The issue unresolved the discussion ended whenthe receptionist announced that the instructor’s one-thirty isin the preflight room.
She entered the room and with admirable composure, introducedherself and the flight school. As she pre-flight-schooled methere remained the residue of conflict in her eyes and voice.
“Well let’s do it,” were the words that brought me tomy feet, through a side door, and into a huge hanger laden wingtip to wing tip in shinning, sleek jets, biplanes, and a beautifultwin engine classic. She scurried along the hanger’s perimeterbut I, was strolling through heaven’s motorpool. Within arm’sreach, perched in their nests, lay the wings of my passion, teasingmy eye and inviting my company. Falling well behind her gate Iremained starry-eyed as a child on Christmas morn. Immediatelyupon swinging the metal door out onto the exposed ramp, gnarlynoise and noxious odors assaulted my senses, yet the seductionof the Mooneys, biplanes, and Lear jet back in the hanger, lingered.Lingered that is until she said, “This is our trainingaircraft. “
The Cessna 152 is not a sexy aircraft, nor does it conjure uppre-dawn landings on white sand beaches. I had not even flownyet, and already had my very first significant disappointment.She was dumpy, boxy, small, and painted in PMS green. As the instructorran through an abbreviated preflight I unsuccessfully tried toovercome the shock that my first blind date with the heavens wasbeing hawked as an aircraft with…great personality.
“Okay take the pilot’s seat,” she calmly directed. Isaid to myself, take the pilot’s seat? Mounting the aircraft withas much confidence as a five-foot, two-inch Center in the NBAmy next thought leaped backed to the planes in the hanger whichwere prettier, shinier, bigger, and seemingly designed to transporthuman beings with shoulders. Sitting in the left seat one legstill hung up before the dash I became visually accosted by analoggauges, switches, dials, levers, notes stuck to the dashboard,and two convenient foot rests on the floorboards.
“Oh if you freeze at the controls, even though your a bigguy, I will have to punch you to regain control of the aircraft,”she routinely informed me. From that moment on what the aircraftlooked like, never entered my consciousness again. The task hereinvolved a frantic attempt to orient myself, and figure out whatto do with this machine. The instructor pointed out most gauges(instruments, sorry )and after mastering how to read the fuelgauge and magnetic north on the compass the next words I rememberwere, “You will take off…,” or something to the beliefthat Twill bring us up. She was not concerned with the fact thatmy aviation career up until that point consisted of less thanthree minutes of taxi time, during which the instructor had beentransmitting numbers and requests to someone in my ear tellingus to hold short, Tango to Whiskey, and wait in line for a jetwash.
Sure hope she knows what she’s doing, because I do not have aclue, I said to myself. I taxied onto the runway, a long runwaywith embedded rubber trails. Slowly I got her nose lined up withthe white line some twenty more feet down this very long runway,while a gaggle of jets and other prop planes waited with measuredtolerance.
“You’re clear, push the throttle forward, keep us on thewhite line…throttle all the way forward, pull back slightlyon the yoke, right rudder, not to far up, hold the nose tree level,you’re up, we’re gonna come to the left here soon. . . “
Truthfully I will never recall exactly what she said. I sat inawe that this homely machine had brought me to my first audiencewith winged flight. I wished only the crackling chatter in myear, and the laboring roar of the engine would subside and allowme my first moments alone with my love. No doubt pinch-nzetime had arrived. I had to remember to breathe. One part ofmy brain kept informing another, “I am flying, it’s happeningright now, we’re flying.” Still another part tried to revivethe time-orientation department of my brain to accelerate backto real time. My fingers were white crushing the yoke, least wefall out of the sky.
“We’ll practice a few turns.”
Emanating from within came the repeated message, God…I’m flying.A few times the message was addressed directly to God, but mostoften the whole sentence resonated as an exclamation. In factmost of my conscious conversation was with God, and not my instructor.
“Keep the nose up,” came through my headset.
The few times I glanced down at the gauges I came away markedlymore confused. But no matter, I was flying. My subconscious shouted,“Yes! Yes!” I peered out the side window anddown. I instinctively asked, “God (to) look at that.”When we caught sight of the Tappen Zee Bridge gracefully stretchingthe Hudson River I reminded God how beautiful it all was.When we lost about fifty feet in two-tenths of a second I alsospoke directly to God.
“See the airport?”
With conviction I reported, “No. “
“Head on in at 111°, watch that area ahead of the dam,a bit to the left. Nose up.”
“God, it looks so different from up here,” were my thoughts.
“You can head it in, but I will land the plane. When I saymy plane you release the controls. “
Somewhere in that faded, yellow wind screen appeared the footprintof the airport but the plane’s nose pointed off to the left, andwe needed to go straight, descend, loose some speed, follow thelandmarks, what did the tower say, one-one hold short…traffic.
“Watch your air speed! Okay my plane.”
It was over, I had become a passenger. The Cessna floated overthe numbers and above the broken white line, then grated the concreteand settled down to the runway. Other aircraft were arriving andour orders were to vacate the runway and Tango and Whisky home.No discernible emotion could be observed on my instructor’s faceand to me that fact was remarkable. How could she sit there sounaffected by what we just experienced.
In a tease, my first flight was over. Only when the engine hadbeen silenced did I feel the soreness in my right knee which spentthe entire flight scraping the bottom of the dashboard. The tensionslowly ebbed from my body leaving many taut muscles in exhaustion.The machine stood silent, dispassionate, and unaware of what ithad accomplished for me. The instructor continued describing shut-down,however I was preoccupied with the fact that airplanes can fly.We walked back through the hanger which rekindled my craving fora handsome warbird, or elegant lady airship, or the slender penetratingprofile of a Lear jet. The instructor sat me down for a briefingon the school and asked if I wanted to purchase their flight kitthat included the POH for the Cessna 152. “Gee I don’tknown I haven’t decided on a flight school yet, you’re the firstone I’ve visited.”
That first flight consumed my thoughts for the rest of the day.In many ways it was more than I expected, in some ways less, andin no way exactly what I expected. I had been in privileged space.That day I had a great answer for the obligatory greeting of,”What’s new?” Everyone had a different reaction to myfirst flight. Some folks confessed to acrophobia, a few femalecolleagues used satire to criticize my masculine expression forpower and control, and still others searched my eyes for additionalsigns of insanity. These earthbound souls would not know my joy.They confused self indulgences, social agendas, and ozone layerswith the fact that I flew today. I had been granted brief passagethrough the skies created for life and angels granted the giftof flight. I rode the winds, skirted the clouds, and looked upand into earth’s window to the universe. In a puny semblance ofcontorted metal I gained entrance to a world of elegant splendor.What’s new? The earth, the clouds, the wind, the mountains, therivers, the trees, the sun shinning through a silver curtain ofwater-lace and silk in a rainbow of life, were all new…again.
My second wing…
The second time I flew an aircraft, was like the first, a 30-minute,loss-leader Discovery Flight. However that would proveto be its only similarity with my very first flight. The airportstraddled a valley some 46 miles from my home. The drive up northconsumed all of an hour, much along scenic back-country roads.Over the past two winter months I had been driving to all thelocal airports within a fifty-mile radius of my home to interviewflight instructors and scope-out flight schools. FBO cantinascontained copious quantities of information about the residentflight school(s) and instructors. My philosophy is that schoolsdo not educate students, teachers educate students. My winterproject was to identify a good CFI, hopefully working at a well-maintainedand professional flight school. The airport carried two schools,one of which I had eliminated. The second school had just twoinstructors, a father and son. The father, a qualified CFII andFAA Flight Examiner had just celebrated his eighty-second birthday.This man’s reputation hovered right there with the DC3 and movieslike God Is My Copilot. I had met the man a week priorafter spending a fair amount of time with two of his former studentsin the FBO cantina. The man had white hair atop facial featuresbrimming with character, all carried by a stately tall, slender,frame. He donned an eight-section cap and had little trepidationmeeting you eye-to-eye. He knew (knows) a great deal about aircraft,a great deal. He knew a great deal about aviation history simplybecause he could tell you first hand about most aviation eventsfrom about Lindbergh on up. My wish in life is that at eighty-two,I can still distinguish the difference between a Cessna 152 anda hot dog stand at less than 50 paces.
My flight would be with his son in a high-mileage Piper 140. Theson inherited his father’s tall frame but carried a more reserved,subtle manor about his business. An ex-Marine, (although thereis no such thing as an ex-Marine) he could easily require a recalculationof the CG by turning his neck. His credentials included a certifiedA&P. The aircraft in question had seen many starry-eyed wanna-be’slike me. I could have sworn it moaned, “It’s only a matterof time before you run me lean at 1000 MSL till my heads ache.”Indeed she had one new head, two new ignition wires, and a rebuiltmaster cylinder. The Piper kept her keep by being the workhorseof the flight school. The cosmetics of the aircraft could bestbe described as a Florida beach-side hotel room the day afterSpring Break. However my instincts about this CFI/A&P assuredme of the flight worthiness of the aircraft. Indeed after thefirst crank she hummed like a thoroughbred. The Piper had onlyone door, leaving the right seat worse for wear. The rudder hadto be bolted to a super-mutant variant of Thigh Master. Thefront windshield design provided more questions than answers,as to what might be outside her nose. It was not a Mustang,but it was an airplane.
As the CFI schooled me I realized the benefit of being taughtby several instructors. Each one had added something to the science,art, and practical application of pre-flight and flight. Thisobservation would play a key role in my selection of a flightschool. My A&P-CFI suggested I circle the area of the run-upfor fluids, parts, and any other evidence of mechanical failure.A good idea and Standard Operating Procedure
Finally ready for the main course, engine humming, teeth rattling,expert in at least three gauges, throttle in hand the CFI boils,”Damn, damn!” Out of the Piper’s rationed window twoparachutists appear, landing just 75 feet left of the active runway.Truthfully damn, damn is not a direct quote as the quotation marksimply, but simply a translation from the original text stringthat continued for some twenty explicatives exploring such topicsas people’s ancestors, the intellect of the parachutists, anda general commentary on small town politics.
Welp, okay parachutists down, let’s go, the clock’s running. TheCFI broadcasted our departure, “Okay power up, don’t rotate,let her fly off the ground.”
Wait a minute what happened to the ATC, ground, tower, hold short,tango and whisky?
“Keep her down till she fights you to fly.”
We’re off the ground like a greased pick-up on virgin ice. “Thereare a bunch of planes up here! “
“Watch out for traffic, it’s mostly knowing where they tendto be. Let’s do some turns, level, and make sure your airspeedis locked on eighty.”
“There’s a bunch of planes up here.”
“Here watch, kick in the rudder with the aileron.”
“There’s a bunch of planes up here.” (this last, “there’sa bunch of…, I said to myself)
The mountains were standing in the green-haze background enjoyingthe sky which had been especially ordered for the day. Deja vousbit me on the cheek. Nearly all the noise, odor, and even thepuny windshield faded as I realized I was flying. Again I relatedto the CFI as a voyeur invading my moment. I did not want to practiceprecision 30° turns just then. I hungered for just a minuteor two to absorb every wondrous sensation and skipped heartbeat.Instinctively I reminded God how beautiful this all is, and themajesty of mother earth.
“Okay let’s stall her out, nose up! Okay there, she’s a fewclicks before she stops flying, feel it?”
I guess…oops.
“That nose will drop out from you, don’t pull up,let her stay down a second, get some air speed. “
Well, I just wanted to go back up there and get my lunch.
“Bring her up, climb to 2500, add power, wings level. Herethis angle.” The plane jumped when he took control, muchlike a seventeen-year-old private being barked at from a post-warmangled drill sergeant, the morning after catching his wife inbed. He wore the plane like a prosthetic device, and that planewould not dare change attitude without asking permission first.”Go head take it.” The old mare knew it was me againthe moment I pulled on its reins. “Do you know where therunway is?”
Sorry, right now I don’t know where my wrist watch is. “No.”
“Okay, it’s right under us, see?”
“No.” (The wing’s in the way, the side window is toosmall, but I do see a plane crossing our path. There’s a bunchof planes up here.)
“Okay emergency, you lost power.” He reached for thethrottle and threw her in idle. I will swear to this day the Pipersnickered under its exhaust, knowing exactly what the rookie hadcoming. “Here.” With less than the concentration requiredto brush one’s teeth he banked her left and started a spiral descent.Only when those wings waved under the fuselage did I get my firstpeek of the runway. Simulated emergency and a few other numberscame through the dash speaker as we lost altitude at a rapid rate.Later the concept of centrifugal and centripetal force would beeasy to understand as I recalled the various positions of my intestinesas we spiraled towards a fast approaching runway. “I’ll puther down on the numbers. “
Please God, not through the numbers.
Neither pilot nor aircraft ever doubted their abilities or limitations.In a dance of wind and a gentle song-breeze the two floated homeand this time I felt like the voyeur, stealing their private momentof intimacy with the wind. She brushed her wheels, and than gentlylaid her head into the rollout as if to stretch out after a morningjaunt. I had such a strange feeling, jealousy, pure jealously.He had me taxi to the home ramp, but there could be no doubt ofmy amateur status.
The long ride home found mixed emotions. First I kicked myselffor not starting flight school years ago. Next I realized regardlessof desire or even intellect, skill is required. For me the simulatedemergency demonstrated my inability. To be sure feeling incapableis not often found on polished curricula as a learning objective.Most education experts would admonish the author of such an objective.But this is not Marketing 101 or Contemporary English Literature.This course encompasses the safe control and comprehension ofthe fundamental physics and skills necessary to pilot an aircraft.The course is about ability and limitations, and the margins theycreate. The course is not about aircraft but an aircraft. It isnot about piloting, but a pilot. The course is about a given day,a given aircraft, the hour’s weather, and the pilot’s abilityat that hour. The course is not about passing or failing, it isabout insuring every safe takeoff will have a companion safe landing.That day my goal changed. My goal was no longer to fly. It isto fly my plane in an intimate dance of wind and safely returnto dream again, of my next dance.
My third wing…
The third time I would take to the skies would be my first trueflight lesson. After several months of searching I decided touse two CFIs as my instructing team. A handful of discovery flightshad demonstrated that each individual CFI added or detracted fromthe art and knowledge of teaching someone to be a safe, responsible,and confident pilot. My team consisted of a CFI with a naturalability to teach flight control skills matched to a CFI with akeen sense of procedures, the dynamics of artificial flight, andoperational safety. Thankfully there was no ego conflict in theirsharing the same student or trepidation of exposing their instructionto review by a colleague. The benefits to me were enormous. Inthe off-hours they would discuss my progress and decide on theobjectives for my next lesson. As hoped for, each CFI contributedtheir insights and helpful aids to my better understanding a skillor fact. Many identical facts and skills were emphasized by bothCFIs reinforcing their importance in my repertoire of elementarypiloting skills. In contrast each CFI would sometimes vary ona particular skill or fact thereby increasing the breath of myknowledge and abilities. In addition working with two CFIs affordedme a considerable advantage when scheduling lessons. A studentpilot must also reckon with the inevitables in life such as death,taxes, and your CFI accepting employment elsewhere. For me thelatter would come much too soon. However by having two CFIs thisgreatly reduced the anxiety, time, and financial cost of selectinga suitable replacement.
There is always something memorable in firsts, that isthe first time we experience something new and hopefully goodor rewarding. Often we define our experience by reminiscing aboutour firsts: first love, first car, first time in the big city,and first flying lesson. The morning of my first flying lessonhad a winter chill capped by crisp sprays of virgin pearl cloudsstretched out for a lazy jaunt across the silver-blue sky. Poisedat attention wingtip to wingtip about the far end of the rampwere five relatively new Tampicos (TB-9) covered in a heavy morningmist. While we walked towards the formation of aircraft the instructorhad admirably started my introduction to preflight check lists.My eyes, however, were scamping the assembled, available, wingedmaidens for 5541 Charlie. All five sat shy, seemingly self-consciousabout their slender shapes, low-wing profile, pearl-white paint,and conservatively stripped tiers of red and blue. 5541 Charliewaited at the end of the formation.
The instructor announced, “Let’s climb aboard 5541 Charlie.”Through gullwing doors I seated myself behind a full complimentof gauges, instruments, radios, dials, switches, levers, buttons,wires, belts, foot pedals, and a yoke. Like my five-year old Ihad a bout of gee-what-does-this-button-do-(Daddy)? Myinstructor faithfully lectured on about the required documentswhile my mind’s eye had us already rolling on the runway. “Preflightbegins in the cockpit, now lets go back outside.”
“Back outside, what for? I could taste this baby fifty feetabove the George Washington bridge?”, were my exact thoughts.
Exiting Charlie before I had even a chance to turn a few knobsor crank the engine, just to stand out in the cold checking forrivets and squirrel nests, was the ultimate tease. The CFI detectedmy impatience to escort 5541 Charlie into the sky, while he patientlypursued his objective of insuring that I would appreciate andadopt the task of conducting a meticulous preflight check fromthis moment on, and throughout my flying career. Deep down everyitem on that checklist made sense and I tempered my unbridledanxiousness by contemplating the consequences of water in thefuel system, one aileron, one brake, or a shattered propeller.It would turn out that in my first twenty hours of flying I woulddiscover: an under-inflated tire, a minor hydraulic leak, lowoil, a disconnected return spring from the carburetor heat cable,and water in the fuel system.
“Okay, let’s board.”
Do you know the feeling you get when you see an oversized servingof triple chocolate cake with two layers of cherries on the desserttray?
“Please take out your pre-start check list?”
Internally venting my frustration I barked, “Another checklist? Don’t they pay mechanics to check out these planes?”
As with the first one this checklist made a good deal of sensetoo. Right after yelling CLEAR, to three unamused and nowvery annoyed birds perched on the hanger’s eves, 5541 Charliecame to life. The aircraft rocked and roared as instruments camealive, decibels soared, and 5541 Charlie woke.
“Watch that oil pressure.” My instructor began conversingwith Ground Control as he instructed me on the basics of taxingan aircraft. I moved us forward over the painted straight linesin a series of consecutive S-turns, no doubt causing any aircraftowner watching me boogie past his parked pride and joy to sendin any overdue insurance premiums. “Point the nose out here.”
I repeated to myself, “Point the nose out there, faced offthe road, off the runway, to the left?”
“Please take out your Engine Run-up Check list.”
“You gotta be kidding, right?” Freud would have a fieldday with these guys who massage checklists all day. We got allour bolts, we’re running in the green. I’m paying $1.75 a minutewhile we perform diagnostic tests…” Yet, after the run-upthat checklist too made sense to me, and now I hoped that Freudnever took the time to diagnose those of us who live by checklists.Which is a good motto, “Live by your checklist.”
“Okay enter runway 3-4, straighten the nose wheel on thewhite line.”
(“It’s true you are rewarded for patience.”)
“Full throttle, look down the runway.”
What a feeling! 5541 Charlie hummed as he took me down the runway.
“Final check, instruments green, airspeed indicator live,your gonna need right rudder here, rotate at 60, okay pull back,little more, get us up.”
I pulled 5541 Charlie’s yoke up and he responded in-kind graciouslyagreeing to my request to fly. The sound, the sensation of lift,speed, and the sight of the ground being exchanged for sky, isthe opening act of, theater in the clouds. Your mind begrudginglysheds the familiarities and orientation of land for the intoxicatingand unfamiliar physics of three dimensional travel. No need toimagine or dream. You are flying, consciously scooting above theland, escaping land-locked chains with artificial wings grantingviews of the most inspiring of wonders. You are absorbed by thebeauty and awed by the majesty of creation. Mankind’s structuresappear as a pox on a divine design. Hypocritical and idealisticare common in-flight ailments. You wish there were no housingdevelopments, no crass refineries, noxious exhaust, and obscenestrip mining pits. You wish: all aircraft save yours were grounded;the term controlled airspace banned; and you could fly foreveron a twenty dollar bill. You wish the world knew the same beautyand peace on its mantle, as from the sky you transverse. You wish,you dream, you thank God…
“Okay Phil let’s try a thirty degree turn to the right, usingboth aileron and rudder.”
Charlie and I danced awhile using some very basic steps as wegot to know each other. Both of us were tentative. A couple oftimes I squeezed him too hard. Overall we had a blast, scootingand banking, climbing, and descending. It seemed like we had justfinished our second dance when the band leader announced, “Headon in at 111°, try to keep it at two-thousand.”
The verb try was the operand word.
“There’s the airport, 3-4, 1-6, 2-9, 1-1, see?”
“No.” My instructor did not lose heart his student couldnot locate a one-hundred and fifty foot wide, mile long runwayfrom a few miles out. Charlie paid no mind he just buzzed alongsomewhere between 1800 and 2200 MSL happy as a brown bear squeezinga squlrmmg samon in his jowls .
“Need to keep it at 1500. We’re number one for 3-4, we’llstart in on base.”
I thought, “Sounds good to me.”
“Okay need to stay at 1500, tight in the pattern.”
I said to myself, “There’s the runway. Oh look there’s 3-4too.”
“Descend at 80 knots, slow deliberate turns in the pattern,we got a bit of a crosswind.”
(“Fine with me as long as we don’t have another checklist.”)
“Please take out your pre-landing checklist.”
My instructor gave me the illusion I had something to do withthe approach, communications, and landing. Charlie and I knewbetter. The instructor softly lowered Charlie onto the numbers.Safely into the roll out the instructor made Charlie, my planeso I could faithfully duplicate my now trademark taxing patternof S-turns home. Not landing the aircraft yourself is like notgetting a good night kiss at the end of a date. I parked Charlieby the fuel island and like clockwork I heard in my headset, “Pleasetake out your Shut-down Checklist.”
5541 Charlie’s engine cantered to a halt. My first was over. Tooshort, too soon, too little, it had to be the quickest hour ofmy life. I felt special, somewhat strangely undeserving of theexperience, and seduced by all that is there to taste. We walkedback to the flight school and I remember looking back on 5541Charlie being refueled and feeling in debt to him, obligated forgiving me a moment that will always be a vivid memory. Since thatfirst lesson I have gone out with other Tampicos, Victor, Romeoand Juliett, but 5541 Charlie was the first and will always bethe best.
