A brotherhood exists between aviators... or airmen. We share experiences in the skies that few Earth-bound people can know and we fly for a variety of reasons. I was inspired by the pilots of the KLM planes I saw at the airport when I was young; they flew people to new and wonderful destinations; the traveling public back then were an elite few and the women wore gloves and nice dresses and the men traveled in suits. It was a golden age of air travel.
I never achieved my desire to become an airline pilot, though I earned a Commercial Pilot license decades ago. I fly for my own personal reasons and for personal travel on occasion. My time in the sky is never totally alone, even when I am solo in the airplane. There are always others with me in spirit.. some are old flight instructors that I have had, some are the pioneers of aviation who have flown West many years ago. But, I am also with the airplane.. and the airplane has a personality and a being that makes it more than an assemblage of parts flying in close formation. The airplane has a soul of its own.
Here is a selection that I wrote a while back..........
He drove along the bumpy and often potholed road again that was so familiar to him now…. he knew that it would lead him to his place of sanctuary from the rhythms of life that seemed to close in on him from time to time. He needed a place to let his heart soar once more so this drive was out to the airport, a haven for his old dreams and wishes from so long before. He could pick up the scent of the airport before he saw it; the smell of sun heating the asphalt mixed with the recently-cut grass, but there was something else…. the scent of avgas and aircraft oil together…. something he remembered from days long past… and had difficulty explaining to others.
He turned by the mailboxes that marked the northwest corner of the runway area. Mailboxes for the lucky few that dwell in their hangar apartments close to their own dreams. He noticed that the wind was out of the south again today, almost straight down the runway. The windsock at the approach end of the runway was only partially flying, indicating a breeze of about ten miles per hour along the runway heading. He briefly stopped to make sure that his truck was not going to interfere with the low approach of an airplane coming across the fence, and realizing that the way was clear, continued on past the runway threshold and turned right onto the taxiway.
Cars, trucks and airplanes all use the taxiway at this informal airport, but the airplanes have the right of way, for they are the supreme beings at this coveted place. No airplanes were taxiing towards him, and though the sun was well above the horizon, the flight school airplanes were not active yet. The very early risers, the “dawn patrol”, had left for their ritualistic flights more than an hour before. This was his time, separate from that of the others.
He turned left off of the taxiway, then right, then left again… as if his truck knew the way after so many trips out to the hangar. He stopped his truck slightly past the door of his hangar so he would not block the path of the airplane as it emerged into the morning sunlight. He searched for his keys, heart beginning to race slightly now for he knew he would be face to face with one of his life-long desires in a moment.
The key easily turned in the lock and he held the padlock in his left hand, using his right to slide the left side of the hangar door open. The familiar rattles and groans of the heavy door were in a way a kind of audible greeting; the first to welcome him out to the airport.
He slid the right hand hangar door open too, all the way to the stop. The hangar which was normally dark inside was now flooded with the morning light, revealing his companion for the day.
Inside the hangar was an elderly Cessna…. an early 172. His was one of the first built, for it was a straight-tailed 1956 model. Not a Skyhawk, which was not built until 1961, he occasionally had to identify it at the gas pumps to some of the newer members of the pilot community. This graceful shape of curved aluminum was now 52 years old, and as he looked at it once more he remembered that when this Cessna was born, he was a ten-year old boy, dreaming of the days when he could fly in the skies himself.
When he was a boy, he spent many hours out at the local flying club field at home and would troll for rides amidst some of his father’s acquaintances. Sitting on the white rocks that marked the periphery of the parking area and admiring the gleaming machines sitting in the sun, he must have had that lost puppy air about him, for he often was able to ride in the Aeronca Champ or the Ercoupe that took him for rides around the island of his youth. His life desire was to become an airline pilot one day, to travel to foreign destinations where he would safely take the passengers that were traveling for business or for vacations, all of them enjoying the flight amongst the clouds. He wondered where the years had gone, slipping away like the wisps of the clouds that he had longed to fly amongst.
He never was able to achieve his goal of flying for the airlines, for when he was diagnosed with myopia when he was young. Easily corrected with glasses, the airlines had no place for him though as they had their pick of ex-military pilots in the late 60s and early 70s who were available, so the airlines kept their requirements very high, and that meant uncorrected vision was necessary. He felt in his pocket to make sure that his wallet was there, for within it was his own pilot license. He had obtained that coveted “Commercial” many years before, though he had never used it to fly for hire. It was a goal that he had set for himself, but the increased training also helped keep his aircraft insurance at a reasonable level. Still….. he had friends that had flown for various airlines and he had to remind them that even when they talked about their scheduling and recurring flight checks, the rest of us still had to work for a living.
Before any flight can occur, the pilot must perform a ritual to ensure that the flight will go well; no priest or rabbi ever performed a religious ritual with any more attention to detail than his walk-around of the Cessna. He always began the pre-flight checks at the same spot, checking the oil for quantity and to make sure that the cap and dipstick were secure and would not work themselves free during the flight which could cause the lifeblood of the engine to leak out, leading to all sorts of in-flight maladies. All secure, and no oil was needed today for this flight. He snapped the clips closed, streamlining them flush with the outside of the cowling. He next checked the fuel quantity in the left tank and secured the fuel cap on the top of the wing so that the fuel would not siphon out during the flight which would cause his beloved powered plane to become a glider. He drained the left tank sump into a clear plastic cup where he looked at the fuel, checking for any water or moisture, any sediment that could clog the fuel system, and to see that the color was light blue… the color of the 100 octane Avgas that he used in this plane. He smelled it to make sure that it had that familiar scent to it, and was not contaminated with any other chemicals. Once he was satisfied, he tossed the remainder of the fuel from the plastic cup outside on the pesky weeds that he was always trying to control outside the hangar. He often thought he needed to fly more; even killing the weeds was another reason that he could use to justify his trips out to the airport.
He continued his walk-around, running his hand along the leading edge of the wing, caressing the plane as if she were his mistress. He checked the pitot tube and its cover, making sure that it was as it were supposed to be. He worked his way out to the wingtip, feeling no dings or scratches, feeling the rivets which helped form the exquisite shape of the wing, the airfoil that would keep him aloft. Along the trailing edge of the wing now, he moved the ailerons and checked the freedom of movement. The hinges were secure, and the aileron on the other side rose as he pressed this one down, as if to say “I am here too, doing what I need to do, and I am ready to fly!” The flaps were next, the large fowler barn doors that would enable him to make steep descents when needed without picking up speed on the approach. He worked his way around to the tail, checking for easy movement and to make sure that the hinge points were all secured as they should be. He worked his way around to the right wing, hand caressing the fuselage as he went along. He began his examination of the right wing at the trailing edge, being careful not to hit his forehead on the trailing edge of the flap. Aileron, wingtip and fuel quantity were as they should be. He checked the fuel sample from the sump and noticed a few drops of water in the bottom of the container…. “Remnants of the storms at Oshkosh”, he thought. He rocked the wings to move any fuel to the low point of the tank where the drain was and re-sampled the fuel. No moisture was observed this time, so he moved down to sample the fuel from the gascolator at the firewall. Only clean fuel greeted him in the sample cup, so he tossed the remainder off onto the weeds outside the door. The propeller was next, and he ran his hands along the leading edges, checking for nicks or scratches. The prop was secure, too.. .as he gave it a tug. He had never had one come loose, but that tug on the prop was always the end of his pre-flight ritual.
Now it was time to pull the Cessna out into the sunlight. He did not need a tow bar for this; he pulled on the prop blades near the spinner and she began to move easily… forward, across the bumpy lip of the hangar where the door tracks were. She shuddered as she bumped over these tracks, as if she were awakening from sleep…… and as the wingtips cleared the doors he began to pull her to the left, gracefully, gently, as if she were a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, feeling the sunlight on her skin once more.
He parked his truck in the hangar and pulled the doors shut for now. The taxi area outside the rows of T-hangars was narrow, and he did not want to block access for someone else who might need to get by. He walked up to the Cessna on the left side, and gently pulled the door open.
Memories flooded back as they often did when he moved up into the left seat in the airplane. Thoughts of a young boy, eagerly buckling into the passenger seat of an airplane were so vivid in his mind as he buckled his seatbelt and shoulder harness. He began his start ritual for this plane… “4 gas, 3 electric”, he thought. Fuel tank selector on Both, mixture rich, one stroke of primer, throttle opened ¼ inch. Master switch on, key into the magneto switch and turn to Both, and then pause… shouting “Clear!” to warn anybody nearby that he was about to start an airplane… and then pulling the starter knob.
The Continental engine began to clatter itself awake; only two blades went by and then they became an almost invisible blur of motion. The breeze now filling the cockpit was from the propeller, bringing with it that scent of a piston engine that has just come to life. He reached out and shut the door firmly, pushing back on it to make sure that it was fully latched. He now had various cockpit checks to perform before the two of them could move anywhere. Oil pressure was in the green, he set the trim tab to the takeoff position and pre-positioned the directional gyro to the runway heading where he would uncage it during the takeoff roll. He added one notch of flaps, just ten degrees which would let him reduce the takeoff distance slightly. He turned on the GPS receiver, though he had the entire route memorized and could fly it easily, he enjoyed the track, speed and the position information that the GPS would click off as they flew along. His destination for this morning is 3T0, and he input that as the destination airport in the GPS. He turned on the communication radio to the frequency that the pilots use at this airport to announce their intentions, 122.9 mhz, and listened for the radio chatter as he prepared to taxi out.
He relaxed his feet on the toe brakes, and she began to move hesitantly, slowly she tiptoed along the hangar row until she arrived at the end of the row and needed some additional power to make the right turn, retracing the route out to the end of the runway that he had driven when he arrived at the airport.
At the run-up area of runway 17, he turned the Cessna so she faced down the runway. He did not want to blast the hangar at that end of the taxiway and fill it with sand and gravel, so he was careful to begin his run-up only after completing his turn. The oil pressure was coming up slowly, responding as the engine warmed before takeoff. He ran the throttle in until he saw 1700 rpm on the tach, and then pulled the carburetor heat knob out….
and the RPM dropped about 50 rpm. He pushed it back in, and the rpms went back to their original speed. “Good, he thought, we are ready for any carb ice if we need it.” He then checked the magnetos, switching from both to left, to right, and back to both. He expected a drop of about 75 rpm when going from both mags to only one, but there would be no drop between the left and right one. Back to both, the original rpm was there… and he was satisfied that all was well under the cowling.
There had been no radio chatter announcing incoming traffic, but he knew that some of the older Cubs and Champs at this airport had no electric systems or radios, so he turned the Cessna until he could see all the way down the final approach, making sure that no planes were either looming high or sneaking in low behind the bushes. “Clear to go”, he thought, as he turned the Cessna to the left and she rolled out onto the big “17” that was the runway number.
“Northwest Regional Traffic, Cessna 6720 Alpha rolling for takeoff runway 17, northeast departure!” he announced, and gently pushed the throttle forward, all the way to the stop. The sound level increased, and she slowly began to gather herself for takeoff. She did things in a leisurely manner, not in a hurry to get anywhere, and the takeoffs gave you time to think and make sure that you had everything going the way you wanted it to. He uncaged the directional gyro, now on the runway heading of 170 degrees, and watched her airspeed building, now past 40 mph…… 50…… 60.. and he gently increased the back pressure on the yoke. She was becoming light on her feet now, like a ballerina dancer.. eager to fly, yet not an air vehicle yet. Another few miles per hour of airspeed and the wings grasped enough lift to let them both escape the bonds of earth.. smoothly rising from the runway and gathering more airspeed until she settled into her normal climb speed of 80 mph. He released the one notch of flaps that he had in for takeoff, and she was clean, now streaking across the end of the runway and climbing in a gentle left turn to stay within the airport traffic pattern.
He had that indescribable feeling of freedom, when the world fell away beneath their wings and they blended together into a being of the skies. Gleefully, the two of them climbed out away from the traffic pattern and began a turn to the northeast, picking their way around the Class D airspace of Denton and staying below the Class B airspace of DFW. Once clear to the north of the Class B airspace and monitoring Regional Approach on the communications radio, they throttled back to a gentle cruise speed of 110 mph indicated, and watched the boats and jet skis on Lake Ray Roberts as they flew overhead. They continued along one particular long bay, pointing like a finger to the northeast and along to Lake Texoma.
The visibility was so clear that you could see the buildings in downtown Dallas to the southeast, 40 miles away. This was one of those clear days after a frontal passage and all of the normal dust and haze was pushed off to the east. The green summertime land patterns under them showed the forests and plowed fields which gave them the little bumps of turbulence from the convection rising off of them. They climbed to 2500 feet, not very high but still low enough to easily see the cars on the highways, and a loaded long freight train slowly struggling along with its mile-long entourage of freight cars trailing behind.
He looked for a tall radio tower, one of the landmarks along his route of flight. Once he saw it, he looked again at his GPS, chuckling that it confirmed they were exactly where he already knew they were. Past the radio tower, he reduced the power slightly and without needing to touch the trim, she gently nosed down into a 500’/minute descent, still indicating more than 100 mph. He leaned forward in his seat slightly and could see the runway along the lake shore in the distance.
He added a smidgen of power as they passed through 1600’ and stopped their descent at the traffic pattern altitude, and announced their intentions for landing. “Cedar Mills traffic, Cessna 6720 Alpha on downwind for runway 25.” An answer from a Citabria 5 miles to the south told him that the traffic area was clear for them, so they entered a downwind for runway 25. Knowing that this runway heading would give him a crosswind for landing, he already was planning his forward slip that would let him arrive at the runway while correcting for the wind drift that would try to push him to the north.
He pulled on full carb heat now, and reduced the power to 1700 rpm for his glide. They slowed now, to 75 mph as he added three notches of flap for landing and descended closer to the lake, turning gently to the left to align with the runway heading. He let the wind push him closer to final and straightened out as the runway came into view directly in front of the windshield, smoothly gliding lower over the lake until the grass runway flashed underneath them. Pulling back on the yoke, he raised the nose of the Cessna and the main wheels gently whooshed into the grass, gently rocking the two of them now as they slowed on the slightly undulating surface of the runway. Adding some power, he taxied them over to the parking area and parked between the old tires marking the outline for a parking spot.
He shut the engine down, pulling the mixture control back until the Continental gently clattered to a stop, the propeller stopping in its familiar way that so many other planes did for the boy, many years ago. As he opened the door, he could hear the gentle sound of the engine cooling under the cowling and the whisper of the wind in the pine trees along the runway.
In his world, the thrill of taking off and climbing out away from the ground is equally matched with a perfect landing at a place that is different from where he took off. He had been the Captain of his flight, landing safely at a new destination, having enjoyed the flight along the way. This fulfillment was his escape from everyday life, and he reveled in each minute of flight.
This was his dream, and that of the little boy who was still inside him.
