Into the Air

October 31, 2010

Into the Air

Chapter One

It was a calm, but overcast late spring day, late in the afternoon.  Just hangin’ ‘round the airport tellin’ lies an’ braggin’ ‘bout this n’ that with Larry, the FBO, when three young Amish men approached us.  One of them asks, “How much do one of these airplanes cost?”  Larry points to me sayin’ “he can tell you anything you want to know about airplanes,” and Larry just walks away. 

I’m standin’ there slack jawed thinkin’ as if we hadn’t told any lies before now, a regular Liar’s Convention would be jealous of what was to come.  I didn’t know or care about the cost of planes.  All I wanted to do was fly ‘em.  Such a joy it is to line ‘er up on the runway, hopefully into the wind, firewall the throttle, turn the brakes loose an’ hang on to whatever the good Lord was goin’ to cast my way.

I stumbled through the young man’s question, throwin’ out dollar signs based on age of the aircraft, how many screws were on the front end and how many folks you could pile in one an’ such as that.  Then a li’l light came on, “would you boys like to fly?”  One of the boys shot back, “How much would it cost?”  “Not a red cent,” I replied.  Well, you hadn’t seen such carryin’ on an’ elbowin’ as those three started.  I figgered what the heck; might as well put ‘em in one an’ enjoy their reaction as sit there talkin’. 

The airport was sort of a gatherin’ place for the young Amish on Sunday afternoons.  I’d seen 20 or so of ‘em arrive in their buggies and park ‘em the other side of a hanger shed, an’ they’d appear to be havin’ a picnic of sorts, socializin’ and watchin’ the planes come an’ go.  Shucks, if I’d have been a youngster livin’ that close to a small airport, I’d ‘ave been right in there amongst ‘em.    

“Stay right here while I go get a key,” an’ off I go runnin’ to the office.  Larry doesn’t say a word.  When a key’s off the board, there’s rental money comin’ in, so why would he!   I go out to a Piper Warrior, climb up on the wing, open the door and motion for the boys to come to me.  Shucks, I didn’t have to turn around, for they were on me like white on rice.  That is all but one, and he wasn’t too sure that this was just a bit outta his league.  I got the other two buckled in an’ holler’d “you’d best come on with us.  These chances don’t come ‘round ever day.”  He ambled back over toward us with his guilt shadow pushin’ him ever step o’ the way, then he asked “how long will you be?”  “Half hour,” I hollered, “won’t take long.”  I’d a-said ‘a minute n’ a half’ if it’d got him in the airplane.  He can’t stand it, and jumps up on the wing, and the next thing you know, I’m hollerin’, “Clear,” and hit the starter switch.  She coughed and belched, and about the third turn of the screw, roared to life.  Good Gawd-a-mighty, you’d ‘ave swore we wuz on a great big fighter jet fixin’ to soar way high to Hell an’ gone, the way these boys had their faces glued to the windows: lookin’ this side an’ that side gatherin’ a bit more speed taxiin’ toward the threshold.  I ran through the normal warm up procedures, controls check, mag checks, vacuum check,  radio checks, compass check, altimeter check and swung ‘er right an’ left checkin’ for the final traffic check.  Now here we are, nose lined down the center of the runway ‘an these boys were still as if in a coffin.  Hell, it coulda been a coffin, no more experience than I had!!  They didn’t know that.  I was “Sky King” to them and in complete control of their destiny. 

I slammed the throttle to the firewall, and the takeoff roll starts.  Smooth air, not a wind blowin’ and over the trees we go.  What a beautiful takeoff and such clear visibility.  If their faces weren’t glued to the windows before, you should have seen ‘em now.  I could feel through the aircraft controls the change in weight distribution as they leaned from one side to the other to see all that passed beneath them.

“Where’d y’all want to go? Where do you live?” I asked.  “Right down there to the left is the road to the airport.  You can follow that easy enough, and I’ll take you over your houses.”  Off we went; first to one farm, then the next.  I stayed down at an altitude of 700 feet so they could get a good look at their homes or farms and neighbors and such.  You’ve never seen straight till you’ve seen shocks of wheat lined up in a field.  It was spring harvest and the Amish farms could be spotted by their wheat fields.  They saw that and got excited, for it was one of their homes.  One of ‘em hollered, “there’s Sis hangin’ out the wash.  “I’d love to throw my hat out at her.”  I laughed knowin’ he’d do it, if he could figger out how to open the window.  Another said, “Wouldn’t the old man shit, if he knew we were up here?”  That was just too funny.  They were havin’ a grand time, but they weren’t havin’ near as good a time as I was.  Being with the Amish, was as strange and excitin’ to me as bein’ in that plane was to them, so it worked well all the way around.

It didn’t take long to cover their community and see all their houses, farms and the sawmill where one of them worked.  After about thirty minutes, I turned final and by the book, Big Bird settled softly again to her nest.  

First thing they want to do is take me for a buggy ride.  Oh how I wanted to go, but time was short and I needed to get home, so I told ‘em I’d take a rain check on that one.  We did spend a few minutes talking, and I learned that as young as they were, they were pretty knowledgeable of the world.  Heck, what did I know?  The Amish did without electricity and cars, how much did they know outside their community.  I come to find out those carriages and buggies and wagons travel down the same roads as our cars, just not as fast.  The Dover Airbase is home to the C-5 transport, and these folks would be over there when the base was open to the public, especially when the Thunderbirds were in town.   They’d get in line to tour a C-5 right along with us.  These young men’s ages were 18 to 20.  David was a teacher, Samuel a farmer and Luke was a carpenter.  They only had formal schooling through 8 grades, but they learned the basics just like I did, and from those basics they built a life.  It was an education for me to learn about them.  Unless you have business dealings with the Amish, there is little interaction or conversation.  This was a rare and engirdled opportunity for me as it was for them to fly. 

Curiosity did bring me to ask them if they’d get in trouble for flyin’ with me.  They said, “Yes, if word got out about it.”  “What would happen to you?” I asked.  “We’d have to go to confession,” one replied.  Not knowing about confession, I asked “you mean like in the Catholic Church where you go in a booth and talk to a priest?”  “No, worse than that; we’d have to get up in front of the church, get down on our knees and beg for forgiveness from the whole church.” Samuel answered.  I responded, “Gracious boys, I don’t believe I’d tell anyone then!”   

I wished ‘em well and we all parted happy and content.  They tried their best to pay me, but I wouldn’t take it.  Another time I told ‘em. 

Chapter Two

A couple months later working out of state on a power plant in Oswego NY, I rented a plane and flew back home to Dover DE.  Before returning to upstate New York that Sunday, I took my 7 year old son, Aaron to the airport for some flyin’.  Michael and Aaron loved to fly.  I cannot imagine what I’d ‘ave done, had I the opportunity to fly at their age.  I’d probably be in a different occupation, is the first thing that comes to mind. 

I loaded Aaron into the Cessna 172 an’ we taxied ‘er over to the fuel pumps to top off the tanks.  As I was filling the tanks, I glanced over toward the grove of trees the other side of the hanger type shed, an’ who do I see, but three young Amish boys headed our way.  I recognized David and Samuel, but the third, I did not know.  In greeting I asked, “You boys want to go flyin’?”  Quiker’n you could say Jack Sprat, Aaron piped in, “You don’t have to worry, there’s bags behind the seat that you can throw up in if you get sick!”  Where he got that or how he knew, I’d no idea, for I don’t really know if we were equipped with such sick bags as on the commercial lines.  Anyway, you could see the grins on their faces.  Samuel said he’d sit this one out and let his friend John ride, if I was serious.  “Load ‘er up boys, and we’ll be airborne quicker’n you can say ‘giddy up!’“  As I hung the fuel nozzle on the pump, Samuel came over to me and almost at a whisper shared, “we told Sis about our flyin’ with you, but we didn’t tell anyone else and we haven’t had to do confession!”  I laughed out loud, remembering their punishment, had they been caught.

It didn’t take us long to get off the ground.  Another beautiful day full of sunshine and but a few billowy clouds.  I took us up to 2500 feet an’ directly over the airport.  I thought I’d let their Amish friends on the ground enjoy seeing their buddies cut holes in the sky.  Acrobatic flight was not my intention, but some chandelles and lazy eights and wing over wing turns would suffice the best I could do considering the C-172 was not qualified for acrobatic maneuvers.  Then I looked over to Aaron, and said, “Have at it Son.”  Katy hold yer drawers, for I was not prepared for the next move.  Did I say we weren’t rated for acrobatics?  Sweet Mother of God, but this boy is gonna kill us!  We were dang near upside down before I could get my hands back on the yoke.  My heart was in my throat a mere inch or so in front of my rectum.  Thank goodness for seatbelts and doors otherwise it’d just be Aaron up there borin’ holes in the sky and soon to auger in deep into good ole Mother Earth.  I snatched hold of the yoke and got us back upright, straight and level, and with what little bit of calm and reserve I had left, said, “Son, I say Son! Let’s see if we can do it one more time just not quite so quick and severe this time; slowly, if you please and keep the sunny side up.” 

The next 20 minutes, we did some steep turns an’ lazy eights back an’ forth over the airport, an’ then did some local sightseeing before returning to the field.  I had her lined up nicely on final, when I heard all this rustlin’ in the back seat.  I turned around an’ the beads of sweat on John, were near big as a thumbnail as he asked, “didn’t you say there were some bags here to throw up in?”  Oh God please I prayed, not down my neck!  “John, can you hang tough for just a second.  We’ll be on the ground shortly.”  It was hotter’n Bob Steele’s pistol in that airplane with no air-conditioning, with only vents over the pilot and copilot’s seat.  I reached up an’ directed the blast of air as far to the back seat as I could, but it was minimal.  I felt so sorry for that poor fellow, for there is no sickness worse than motion sickness.  Besides that, I was but a short distance from the threshold and in the middle of my landing checklist.  The next 15 seconds were more like 15 minutes and the touchdown flare seemed to hover forever over the runway, but as soon as the wheels touched and the nose wheel settled down, I popped my door open and a whirlwind draft enveloped poor John. 

I taxied up to our parking spot, and shut her down.  Aaron and I jumped out, and I went around helping John out of the aircraft.  It took two of his buddies to hold him up as he unsteadily hobbled back to his quaint black buggy.  Poor fellow, I thought.  Just as I was feelin’ sorry for John, David pulled me aside and said, “Next time you come and I get a chance to ride, I’m going to bring my girl friend, but I want to tell you now to let Aaron come and let him have his head, because when he does, she’ll get real scared and will grab a-hold of me real tight!”  That was too funny and the perfect ending to an imperfect flight!