Who Is In Your Right Seat?

It was time for our weekly lunch meeting of the local aviation mafia, and we were all at the sandwich shop around the corner from the airport. Our group included yours truly and three guys I had known for years from our shared flying experiences.

Once the food had been ordered, delivered, and eaten, we settled into our seats around our usual table in the back. Our discussion descended from "How are your kids and grandkids doing?" into what could only be described as a freshman dorm room alcohol-induced bull session.

Jim, our local AI (IA?) and mechanical genius, brought up a subject I had not thought of in a long time. 

"Okay," Jim said. "Name at least four people from either history or present day that you would like to take flying. Who do you want in your right seat for a long flight and talk?"

Harry chimed in and asked, " Do these people have to be real, or can they be fictional?"

He had a good point. I can't tell you how many long flights I have pretended I had to explain aviation to a ninth-century Mongol or a starship captain who needed a lift. It would embarrass me to admit how much flight time Captains Kirk and Piccard had with me.

"Seriously?" Captain Kirk would say to me. "You get your food out of a grimy galley and not a food replicator? 

"You call this Earl Grey tea?" Piccard would sputter. "Hey, look out for that thunderstorm – make it so!"

The group at the table decided to exclude all fictional characters from Pooh Bear, who wanted to fly with bees, to Peter Pan, who had a habit of snorting some sort of dust and getting high.

We settled into a conversation listing people like Yeager, Armstrong, and Earhart. Some people on my friends' lists surprised me, some bored me, and some were intriguing. 

Too much-iced tea led to me missing Frank's list, and when I returned from draining the main, I found that it was my turn.

"Believe it or not," I said, "I have put quite a bit of thought into this. My list of dream right-seaters might surprise you enough to pay for my lunch."

My first choice, of course, would be Benjamin Franklin. 

I have sat near Ben's grave quite a few times during Philadelphia layovers and always wanted to spend some time talking with him in a bar, asking questions over some milk punch (a heady concoction of brandy, lemon juice, nutmeg, sugar, water, and hot whole milk). There would be plenty to discuss if we were flying and climbing through the flight levels and around thunderstorms.

For example, I bet he would notice that I was wearing bifocals, his invention. He might then be interested in seeing the lightning from storms as we deviated around them. He might perhaps be amazed to find that some lightning fires out of the tops of the storms.

My lunch partners were looking at their watches and squirming a little, so I immediately came up with choice number two: Winston Churchill.

Winston has always been a person I wanted to hang out with. He founded the Royal Naval Air Service, which led to the formation of the RAF, and he also flew quite a bit, but never by himself. 

He scored more aircraft crashes and mishaps than Harrison Ford and took more than forty hours of dual, but he never soloed.

The reason is funny when you think about it. Churchill's wife Clementine forbade it. Apparently, she thought it was fairly safe to leave government to serve as lieutenant colonel of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers fighting in the trenches of World War One in 1915, but three touch-and-goes were too dangerous.

I would offer to train him to his first solo using a local Cessna 150. He does not have a medical but does not need one because he is dead.

My third choice is Jimmy Doolittle. Harry had already picked Jim, but Harry wanted to fly with old Jimmy. I want to fly with 1930s Jimmy – airshow and daredevil Jimmy.

We could talk about many things, and if we had time, I would ask him to teach me aerobatics. I know he lived well into our era of flying, but I bet he would like to shoot a CATIII approach to an Autoland. After all, he and others in the Guggenheim group invented instrument flight.

I could see my friends getting up from their seats, ready to head home, when I dropped my fourth choice on them: my mom.

My mom never flew with me, and it wasn't because I didn't ask her to go along. She was the nervous type, and the closest we ever got to flying was taxing out and back in a 172 in 1973.

She has been dead since 1990, and although she was proud that I had become an airline pilot, she never got to see me do it. I guess I was too goofy of a kid to trust. After all, she really knew me.

Our group was now in the parking lot, squinting in the sun and going our separate ways for another week. None of us knew if we would ever be on anybody's right seat wish list.