It happened on a warm April mid-afternoon in Milton, Florida. A student pilot with approximately 60 hours' total time, I was preparing for an aerobatics solo flight in a North American T-28. As there were cumulus clouds in the area, my instructor advised me to keep a watchful eye, be prepared for a change in the winds aloft, and stay alert for a radio call recalling soloing students. I heard the words.
I took off and climbed confidently to the practice area some 25 miles north, leveling off at about 9,000 feet. Making the appropriate clearing turns, I began a series of very steep 360-degree turns, aileron rolls, barrel rolls, loops, half Cuban eights, and wing-overs, often pulling several Gs.
Such exhilaration! Such freedom! I felt like Superman, exerting absolute control over the 1,425-horsepower T-28 strapped to my rear end - and listening to the growling nine-cylinder Wright Cyclone R-1820 engine.
Just a few months earlier, I had been an apprentice box boy in a department store, heading nowhere. Today, just out of my teens, it was as though I was starring in a movie, and I was my greatest fan. I had the world by the tail, doing what few of my friends could ever dream of doing.
Too bad I didn't have the weather by the tail as well. Or my brain.
As I started to fly another loop, I had trouble seeing the ground references I needed to stay oriented. The clouds had thickened and closed in beneath me. I could only see the ground for a few seconds at a time as I passed over tiny openings in the cloud layer. Then, suddenly, I couldn't see the ground at all.
I checked the time. My God, I thought, I've been gone more than 90 minutes. It seemed like no more than 10.
I turned south, toward (I thought) my field. The weather got worse. I'd had not one minute of instrument instruction.
I wondered why the school hadn't radioed a weather recall when it occurred to me that I had not heard a chirp from my airplane's single radio since taking off. I moved through various channels, but heard nothing. I tried calling my field to report my delayed return, but got no response.
After a half-hour circling above the clouds over the area where I believed my field was, I found a large hole in the cloud layer, made a circular descent and leveled off at 2,500 feet-well below the cloud base.
I couldn't believe what I saw. Beneath me, it was gray-blue from horizon to horizon. I was somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico!
I still had plenty of fuel as I headed north at the most efficient cruising speed. In 30 minutes, I was over land. But there was nothing below to help me navigate - just evergreen trees and marshes. Should I turn east or west? Time to admit I was in trouble. I switched to 121.5 MHz (megacycles in those days) and requested help. Again, not a sound.
Guessing at the wind, I opted to fly an easterly course. Another half-hour passed, and I was still over unfamiliar turf - patches of forest and a few small farms. It was getting hazy and growing dark, and I had no night flying experience. What's more (I learned months later), my night vision was not terrific.
Now fuel was becoming a consideration. I felt a horrible lump in my stomach. I had been aloft for some three hours on what was to have been an 80-minute flight, and I hadn't a clue where I was nor any way to communicate. There was no sign of civilization, save for a few farmhouses. No airports, no cities, nothing. I had never felt so alone.
I thought about my family and wondered what they would think: Their kid goes off to become a pilot, gets lost, and disappears into the Florida forests. Or was I over Alabama or Mississippi?
All of a sudden, my low fuel warning light went on.
I pulled out my emergency landing checklist. It was hard to concentrate, and I had trouble seeing in the hazy twilight. I wondered when the engine would stop.
One cannot simply plunk a T-28 down on a tiny farm surrounded by tall pines - at least I didn't know how to. What about bailing out?
Just then, I saw a black strip a few miles off my right wing. I turned toward it and realized that it was a landing strip - shorter than any I had ever landed on, but nevertheless an airstrip. There was no traffic. I made one more attempt at a Mayday call, stating that I was lost and about to attempt a landing at "an unknown airstrip." I couldn't even see a wind direction indicator. It didn't matter now.
I turned on the landing lights, entered the pattern, and prayed that I had a good approach. I felt I would not have a second chance. I went through the landing checklist, yelling each item into the intercom, hoping my shouting voice would give me confidence. I pretended to be my instructor. "Ease up on the power, you're high. A little more. Now line it up! Line it up!"
I managed to touch down - though with a considerable thump - where I had planned. But I was going too fast.
One thing about a T-28, you don't float or fly again once you cut throttle. The wheels struck holes and clumps of grass as I raced across the runway, braking intermittently. Suddenly there was a grove of trees fast coming at me. I stood on the brakes. I made a hard right turn, still going fairly fast, and bounced into a soggy meadow, quickly stopping.
The gas gauge read empty. My knees were weak as I climbed to the ground.
I had landed on the Alabama-Georgia border at an old Army Air Corps World War II practice field that had been converted to a small civilian helicopter repair facility. It had been years since a fixed-wing airplane had landed there, and the runway was long in disrepair.
Another airplane was dispatched to pick me up, and the instructor, aiming for a short, black, unlighted runway in darkness, made a bad landing - adding to my woes. My plane was undamaged, but his received minor damage as the wings clipped off several saplings behind the end of the runway.
There was a bunch of paperwork to fill out, and I had a lot of explaining to do. In the interim, I was grounded.
A senior instructor charged with determining my future in aviation asked, "Have you learned anything?"
"Sir," I replied, "I think I learned about 10 things. Number one is that I am very lucky. Number two, I don't know much about flying at all, and I am just a beginner. Number three is to include my brain in the equipment I take aboard the aircraft...."
I was allowed to fly again.
