LJ Idol Week 5.21: Flying

High Flight (An Airman's Ecstasy) John Gillespie Macgee, Jr. 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 even 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.

* * *I strained forward, my eight-year old face pushed up against the window pane, looking up at the propellered airplane that was about to pass over our apartment house, and started breathing again. If there were doors on the bottom of the plane, they were closed. No bombs would fall on us. Not this time.

You see, I knew that some airplanes, just like the one that had passed overhead, had doors underneath that opened to unleash hell on those below by dropping bombs. I knew this from watching a television show called The Twentieth Century with my stepdad every Sunday, which often showed airplanes bombing cities during World War II. The show didn't scare me, but the airplanes, on their final approach to LaGuardia airport in Queens, did.

I eventually outgrew this fear and, like many boys of that era, dreamt of someday becoming a pilot. This did not please my mother, who had a healthy skepticism about aviation. Media coverage of "routine" accidents aside, she vividly recalled the Hindenburg disaster and the then-recent horror of one Jack Graham, who blew up his mother and 43 other people aboard a United DC-6 that took off from Denver bound for Portland.

"Airplanes are dangerous," she used to say. "They're death traps. Don't fly if you can avoid it."

I had already learned to hold my peace on issues where I disagreed with my parents, but one day, as my mother and I were out shopping, we met one of my school chums, who was walking in the same direction as we. I made introductions and in the course of the subsequent conversation, my mother asked, "So, Mark, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to be an engineer and build airplanes," he said. My mother said nothing, but upon hearing this news, I blurted, "That's great, Mark! You'll build 'em, and I'll fly 'em!"

My mother nearly had apoplexy on the spot.

"You'll do no such thing!" she said, with enough agitation in her voice to cause my classmate to excuse himself from our company. Once he was out of earshot, my mother stopped and turned to me in the middle of the sidewalk and explained all the reasons why I should abandon any idea of piloting an aircraft. They all reduced to: "You'll be killed!"

Nearly three decades later, I walked into the flying school at the Watsonville airport, near Santa Cruz, California, for my first flying lesson. I had considered taking up flying earlier, when we lived in Florida, but the closest school was pretty far away and the hourly rates for instruction and flying seemed astronomical.

They were no less astronomical in California - in fact, they were much higher - but Galina and I reasoned that there would never be a better time, nor were costs likely to go down. That, plus the fact that Philippe Kahn - a Silicon Valley mover/shaker and the CEO of the company I worked for - was an enthusiastic pilot (as were many of my professional colleagues) impelled me to take flying lessons.

The wild thing about the first lesson is that the instructor sits in the co-pilot's seat and lets you take off by yourself, talking you through the process. In fact, you pretty much fly the plane the entire time (which is to say, the plane very nearly flies itself) up to the point where it's time to "enter the pattern" in preparation for landing.

From that point on, the concept of "school" takes on a principally new meaning, because if you don't pay attention, or if you decide to do something unwise (like do a barrel roll in the Cessna you're flying), you don't walk away with a bad report card. Instead, you may not live to regret it.

So I diligently studied the theory and absorbed what I could during cockpit time with the instructor, until the day came when he told me to stop the plane in the taxiway, short of the parking area. He then got out and invited me to take off, fly the pattern, and land. Solo.

The solo flight is an important milestone for the aspiring pilot, and tradition calls for the back of the new solo pilot's shirt to be torn off, but they didn’t do that kind of thing at Watsonville. That missing part of my pilot's education was taken care of after our family moved to Pagosa Springs, in Colorado, and I introduced myself at the flight school at the local airfield.

I completed my initial flight education in Colorado, passing the check ride on the first try (though admittedly, it was a close thing). The one thing I remember from that flight came at the end, when the inspector started nagging me about my fuel management, or rather, my lack thereof.

"You should have switched fuel tanks a long time ago," he said.

"You may have a point, sir," I replied, getting the landing checklist out of the pocket in the door, "but there appears to be plenty of fuel remaining in the left tank, so I don't think any action is required at this time." (And yes, I do tend to speak like an automaton in such situations.)

"Why not switch to the right tank now?" he asked.

"Because the manufacturer recommends using the left tank for takeoff and landing and there is no pressing need not to follow that recommendation," I replied.

"But what if you run out of fuel on your final approach?" he asked.

"If that were to happen now," I replied, clipping the list to my kneeboard, "I am confident I could glide to a safe landing on the runway. Now, however, I must ask you to let me go through this checklist and land the plane. We can discuss this further on the ground."

Afterward, the inspector complimented me on my resistance to his attempt to distract me (though he did have some other things to say about my "turn about a fixed point" maneuver). Over the next couple of years, Galina, the kids, and I did some flying in and out of Pagosa, but in the end, it turned out to be too expensive a pastime, and my health became an issue.

Still, it was worth every effort and every penny invested. I love flying.

* * *

A Response to 'High Flight' alexpgp To you, who slipped the surly bonds of earth And passed too soon from life into God's care, Know this: Emboldened amateurs of worth Convey their grit and sinew through the air In craft that can't withstand extreme techniques, Yet which - when all is said and done - do fly, Up far above the plains, and lakes, and peaks And let us yearning mortals touch the sky. We've learned the rudiments of trim and flaps, Of slips and stalls and carburetor heat, Then plotted out new courses on our maps. And thus we gain reward beyond compare: We chase the wind, and feel the world complete, And know we've shared your footless halls of air!

Cheers...