The Good Old Days

Like most folks, I have to make time in my life for flying. Yet when the world is too much for me I know I have been on the ground too long. One hazy morning in early June I left the house after getting the boy off to school and drove to the nearby grass strip where we keep our Piper J–3 Cub tied down. It's a funky little airport surrounded by suburban sprawl, surviving only because the owner refuses to sell the land to developers.

I parked the car on the edge of the grass, 50 feet behind the flight line. I looked the plane over as I removed the tiedown ropes and cowling and cockpit covers, then checked the oil.

The FBO at this little strip no longer rents planes, so this morning I am the only person stirring on the field. The office in the trailer is locked up. Insurance got too pricey, his wife told me, so they are selling the four rental planes. And, of course, without rental planes flight instruction is now a thing of the past.

The world is changing, even though I wish it wouldn't.

And sometimes it doesn't change fast enough. A woman friend of ours was interviewed earlier this week for a flying job with a major airline. Although she thought she had an excellent interview, she didn't get hired. A dynamic professional aviator with lots of pilot-in-command time in a commuter, she has paid her dues. But she's 40. The airline's refusal to tell qualified people why they weren't hired gives the whole process a bad odor.

With the chocks still in front of the wheels and the tail tied down, I primed the engine three squirts, pulled the prop through twice, then primed once more, cracked the throttle, and turned on the mags. The engine caught on the first pull.

Last week a friend of mine died. He'd had a hell of a time the last few years with lung cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. His left foot was rotting so the doctors cut off his lower leg, but his heart was worn out. He died three days after the operation, at the ripe old age of 64. He had been so sick for so long that I didn't shed a tear at the funeral...and felt guilty.

By the time I got the Cub untied and settled into the pilot's seat, the engine was warming nicely. A tiny breeze from the southwest on takeoff; at 1,200 feet the breeze was a brisk wind. Seventy-five degrees, no clouds or turbulence, visibility about three miles. I trimmed for level flight and watched the 85-horsepower Cub settle into her comfortable 84-mph cruise.

Two nights ago I took my elderly mother to meet some friends in downtown Washington for dinner. She had a grand time visiting, and she chattered all the way into town against commuter traffic and all the way home afterward. Outings are few when you are almost 87, but she certainly enjoyed this one. How many more of those will we have before it's all over, nothing left but memories?

These are the good old days. Isn't that the way the song goes? No, the song lyrics accent the verb. "These are the good old days."

I wanted to make good a course of 180 magnetic, so I aimed the Cub 10 degrees right to allow for the wind. She flew beautifully. The wind coming through the open right-side door went up my right sleeve and puffed out my shirt as I worked on putting the furniture of my life back into its proper perspective.

My friend who died liked to fly with me. He would go every chance we had until he got his pacemaker installed. We quickly discovered that an aircraft ignition system did unpleasant things to it. After that, he liked to sit on the bench and watch me give rides to other people.

The subdivisions and village crossroads that passed beneath the plane were all familiar, so I was not surprised when my first checkpoint loomed out of the haze—a black glass-sided office building on I-95. New course 135.

As I flew southeast toward Annapolis with Baltimore on my left and the Reagan Washington National/Andrews toadstools on the right, I looked for the landmarks, first the old airport at Greenbelt, Maryland, then the garbage mountain. Soon I was passing just to the south of the old racetrack at Bowie. From my lofty altitude I could see the jockeys exercising the thoroughbreds. Although Bowie lost the competitive battle with Laurel and Pimlico for the racing crowd, the track is still used to train horses. The decaying, abandoned grandstand is a fairly decent landmark in the flat Maryland coastal plain when the sun is shining brightly and the visibility is better.

Soon I saw the flash of diffused sunlight reflecting on water, the estuary of the South River. Twenty-two minutes after takeoff I passed south of Lee Field in Annapolis. Minutes later I crossed the shoreline and descended over the bay.

The surface of Chesapeake Bay looked like smoked glass that hazy morning, gray and smooth. The only ripples were from the occasional speedboat, and there weren't many of those. I flew along at 200 feet, a pleasant breeze enveloping me, admiring the reflection of the yellow Cub in the water below.

After a large, lazy circle around an empty day-charter boat that was headed north toward Baltimore, I continued toward the eastern shoreline, just visible, gauzy in the thick haze. As I approached it I climbed to 600 feet and flew over the grass field at Kentmorr, which advertises itself as the very first airport subdivision in America, getting its start just after World War II. There were two airplanes parked in the transient area and two visible in front of the houses that line the south side of the east-west runway. The wind was only two or three knots out of the southeast.

Kentmorr is one of my favorite day trips. A good seafood restaurant is located at the marina just four blocks south of the airstrip. I was not interested in food this morning, yet the lush green grass looked so inviting that I couldn't resist. I plunked the Cub on the sod and taxied back for an immediate departure.

Crossing the beach after takeoff, I leveled at 200 feet, retrimmed for cruise, and turned south to parallel the beach. The houses on the shoreline looked postcard-perfect this early summer morning, with manicured landscapes and boats at the docks. The people who live here, the houses seemed to suggest, live perfect lives. You know that isn't true, and yet....

I think of my two friends now as I skim over the surface of the bay, the little engine humming smoothly, the warm moist air swirling around my arms and face. Oil pressure 40 psi, oil temp 175. All OK.

I fly by a lighthouse on my way toward the western shore, and when I arrive, turn north to generally parallel the beach, staying offshore. I am flying over more crab traps, tended by four crab boats. None of the watermen returns my wave, although several of them glance up as I go by.

Finally, reluctantly, off the mouth of the South River I add power and climb up into the haze, then fly upriver. I am about 600 feet above the river when I pass Lee Field. Watching carefully for other aircraft, I climb on up to 1,200 for the trip home. A fixed-gear low-wing zooms by me on the right, climbs and turns across my bow, then circles around behind. I hold course. After a minute or so he passes me again on the left and continues straight on for the Freeway airport.

I turn northwest, looking for the Bowie racetrack.

A couple of days ago we heard from the only one of the junior officers I served with during the Vietnam War who is still in the Navy. Now a two-star admiral, he just got another set of orders. It's a good job, he said, and will earn him another star or be his last tour. I liked the way he said that, sort of matter-of-fact. All the other guys I knew who stayed for careers are retired; of course those of us who pulled the plug early left the service behind long ago. Retirement comes to us all, I guess, if you live long enough. The secret is to enjoy the journey.

I wish my sick friend and I could have had a few more flights, a few more hours watching the breeze stir the trees and looking at the sky and enjoying being alive. When my father died last year, old and sick and full of years, I had the same reaction: I wasn't ready for the story to end.

The haze seems to be lifting. I can see the black building before I even get to the trash mountain, Mt. Clinton.

The J–3 is flying sweetly. I pull my feet off the rudder pedals and put them in the front seat, which forces my knees apart but is not uncomfortable. Without my feet on the rudder the ship becomes a bit flighty. I put my right foot out in the slipstream, let the prop blast massage the sole of my tennis shoe. At 84 mph the sensation is very pleasant.

Motoring down the glideslope at my home field, I discover that the wind has picked up a bit. The Piper dances nervously in the burbling air, I thrash the stick about smartly to make her behave, and before you know it I am tugging the nose up and feeling for the grass with the main wheels. I can't resist—I look right to catch the earth kissing the right tire, the dazzlingly quick spin-up, the wheel hopping up and down in the rough sod, transferring its energy via bungee cord to the airframe, which vibrates and rumbles as the plane slows.

When I have her parked in her tiedown, I kill the mags and pull off the headset, the cord of which wasn't plugged into anything.

I like the way the J–3 looks, like the shape of it. The elegant simplicity of the design charms me, as does the little motor and minimum instruments and the willingness with which a Cub leaves the ground, almost like an angel taking flight. I can't imagine why anyone would want to clip a Cub's wings.

As I tie it down, snug up the ropes, I think about our son, now 15. He isn't interested in aviation—golf is the center of his life. I suspect that will probably change in the years ahead. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. Regardless, it suits him now.

When I get the cover on the cowling and the blanket over the cockpit area, I stand back and check the chocks and tiedowns while the wind cools the perspiration on my forehead. The day is warming rapidly—it must be at least 80 now.

My wife is coming home from a business trip this evening on Continental's 5:09 from Houston. That brown-eyed woman loves me, a fact which still amazes me.

I walk around the plane one more time, running my finger over the yellow fabric and double-checking everything. The breeze smells of sweet cut grass.

The job you failed to land, the promotion that didn't come, the friends and loved ones passing on, children struggling through the teenage years...tiny defeats and tiny victories are the building blocks of our lives. And time changes us, transforms the world and everything in it one day at a time. In a little airplane on a summer day these truths lose their sting.

Yep, these are the good old days. These hazy summer days of flying and family and friends.

When he isn't flying, Stephen Coonts writes books. His latest book, Hong Kong, was published in September by St. Martin's Press. The author recently sold his Piper Pacer in favor of a brand-new Aviat Husky A1B. Visit his Web site ( www.coonts.com).