Waypoints

Thank you, old girl. Today, you took me everywhere and nowhere, and I am a better pilot for it.

It seems as if every certificate, every rating, every flight for more than two decades of flying has built one upon another toward this day. I am ready—anxious, really, to go. For weeks now, I've thought of you every day, imagined what it might be like. Finally, the day is here.

I've watched the weather daily, waiting for just the right day when the winds weren't too strong. They've been brisk these last few weeks and I've worried about you even here in the hangar. I'm glad for the protection it affords—happy you're not outside getting whipped around in a tiedown; gusts to 60 knots the other day. I'll bet this old tin hangar really creaked and groaned.

And the temperature! Whatever happened to global warming? I thought it would never warm up enough to fly without a preheat again. But today it's manageable. It's warm enough that we needn't bring the noisy preheater by, but cool enough that you (and I) will enjoy the performance afforded by the dense, cold air.

The sun is shining too. Even on the gloomiest days, I'm amazed at how the sunlight somehow sneaks its way through the crack in the hangar door just as I start to slide it open. The light zeros in on your shiny spinner, glinting and reflecting and filling the entire hangar. That dazzle of light is always the first thing I see as the door creaks open. Today, as I lean into the rattletrap old doors, pushing and grunting them open, I can't keep my eyes off you. As Billy Crystal used to say: "You look maaavelous, dahling." That new paint on the leading edges and the cowl—you look brand-new; you're good for another three decades. I run my hand over your "new" leading edges. The pockmarks from too many rainshowers at 170 knots, wiped smooth by a little sanding and new paint. Then I notice the dust—everywhere. Even the propeller blades look almost grayish yellow instead of black. You've been cooped up in here too long. When it warms up, you'll get a deserved bath, but for now let's see if we can go blow some of it off.

The tug. Will it start? Normally it's the first pull; what about today—weeks since it last started? Three shots on the primer and two more for good measure. One pull; two pulls—don't let me down, I need you to run today; three pulls, and there it goes—never stumbling, instantly ready to go to work. Its fat tire spins on a little patch of ice as it lugs you out into the sunshine, but quickly catches on the pavement again and we're moving once more—slowly, carefully. Finally, you're turned and ready to go.

I take extra time on the preflight—because I can; there's no rush today. It's a holiday—New Year's Day, dawn of a new year, decade, century, and millennium. Family holiday commitments fulfilled, I've stolen a few hours for myself—anxious to share them with you, my mistress, and an expensive one at that! Patient, too. What's it been? Four, no, five weeks since our last rendezvous? Oh, sure, I've stopped by the hangar to check on you, but alas it was too cold, too windy, or I was just too busy. But today, I have time and take it to look you over extra carefully, studying every control surface, checking every hinge and fastener.

Strapped in, I check the gear handle—down; master switch on, the fuel gauges come alive, the gyros begin their low growl. Will you start? I yell, "Clear," even though I know there's no one within half a mile. Everyone else is home watching the Bowl games and eating pork. The fuel pump whines during priming. I add a few more seconds for the cold. With uncertainty, I turn the key. One blade, two blades, three, and the big Continental jumps to life as if it had just run yesterday. Alternator and avionics switches on, your systems come alive. Yes!

We snake the serpentine route from the hangars, dodging patches of slowly melting ice and snow, taxiing leisurely while the oil warms up.

Runup complete, radios set. It's time to go. Seven knots of wind right down the runway, temperature 35 degrees Fahrenheit, we're more than 700 pounds below max takeoff weight. This should be fun. I stand on the brakes and slowly advance the throttle; the engine analyzer notes 110-percent power in this cold air. You lurch forward, anxious to be on with it. Brake release and you're thundering down the runway, airborne almost before I can rotate. I point the nose high in the sky for a max-performance takeoff, and you deliver—1,500 feet per minute with only a few runway stripes behind us. You go, girl.

Gear up and attitude at a more sane angle, I reduce power so as not to annoy the neighbors who knowingly built their houses off the end of the runway. No sense in adding fuel to that already-hot fire.

We depart the pattern and climb a few hundred feet for a better view. You're warmed up now. Heat pours in through the floor vents, toasting my toes. We turn northeast because, well, why not? We're not going anywhere in particular today, and yet, in my mind we're going everywhere. As we're tooling along, looking over the countryside, I thumb through the logbook in my mind. Training flights, long cross-countries, business trips, pleasure flights, introducing friends to this magnificent view afforded only to those who fly small airplanes. While my paper logbooks are anything but neat and orderly, each flight is carefully organized in my head—each has taught me a little something, some more (a lot more) than others. Not all of the lessons have anything to do with flying.

Over there's the point where you intercept the localizer for the instrument approach back to the airport. It triggers the memory of my first solo flight in instrument conditions. Just a few days after earning my instrument rating, I flew an approach after a business trip. The bases were high and the visibility underneath the clouds was good. Still, I don't think I ever felt so invincible as I did that evening when the approach lights materialized out of the clouds, glideslope and localizer needles locked in the center of the HSI.

I remember the way the light looked on that ridge over there the evening we descended back into the airport from a long weekend away—the weekend my wife quietly told me she was pregnant with our first child. I was brimming with excitement and uncertainties, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and unprepared for the future. On that flight home, though, as the terrain scrolled by and as the sun ducked slowly for the horizon, my life came back into perspective. We were ready for this thing called parenthood, or as ready as you can be for something so amorphous.

Dozens of such memorable flights ripple through my mind as we scout the county on this quiet afternoon. Soon, we're back over town and entering the pattern. You settle onto the runway with a pair of chirps and, oh, what the heck—one more time. Flaps up, power up, and around we go again.

The eroding piles of snow leak rivulets of water onto the taxiway, creating a quiet whooshing sound under the tires as we taxi in. I stop in front of the hangar and slowly pull the mixture back. The rpm surges slightly and then dies away as the prop ticks to a stop. The tug starts on the first pull this time as I tuck you back into your slot. I'm amused to notice that none of the dust is disturbed—even on the prop blades. It's as if you had never left the hangar. So much for the theory that a highly polished airplane is somehow faster than a dirty one. I learn that this day, if nothing else.

I stop just before sliding the hangar doors completely closed, listening to the tick, tick, tick of your cooling engine. "Thank you," I whisper. "You took me everywhere and nowhere today." Closing the doors, I watch through the crack as the sunlight finds the glinting spinner while you wait patiently to fly another day.

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