Pilot Briefing: Musings

Given the ability of seeing myself from afar, I never would have believed I was capable of killing someone with my airplane.

I almost did in the autumn of 2015 in Alberta, Canada. I mostly fly a Murphy Maverick with an old Continental A-65 that sounds like a tractor when it floats by overhead. A friend of mine had invited my wife and me to the grass strip at his home for a friendly fly-in. My mind recalled his past praise. “I have never seen a plane perform like that on only 65 horses. You were barely rolling and you were up. You climbed like an elevator. You really are one with that plane.”

A reputation had been forged.

The fly-in strip rises to the west: not enough to make it a one-way strip, but enough to make a difference. Plus, at the west end of the runway is a power line. It is just a bit higher than normal, with colored balls hanging from it for pilots to marvel at.

We came in against a west wind. A long, bumpy taxi and we joined the gaggle of airplanes at the turnout. We joined the party: hot dogs, salads, good friends, and lots of airplane talk. The family dog asked politely for scraps. A crisscross of wings like waiting angels filled our view. It was the best of days to be a pilot.

It was an even better fly-in than in past years. There was a warplane to touch. An exhibition of remote-control airplanes buzzed about in swirls of aerobatic color. A STOL aircraft took off in little more than its own length, against that slope and against that wind. It didn’t care that the power line was not far away. I know that all of this was churning about in the far, dark places of my mind. It wasn’t in the pilot’s mind. It was in the man’s.

Before we took off for home, I walked out to the edge of the strip and looked at that power line. The setting sun behind made the red balls glow. I thought I was looking at it from a pilot’s view. But it was with the eyes of a simple, fallible man. A pilot never would have walked out to look. A pilot would have taxied the long, bumpy way back to the east end and just taken off.

Wolfgang Langewiesche writes on fatalities, “there is an obvious element of exhibitionism. The element is so strong that the layman is likely to decide that pilots are a curious breed, one with a marked deficiency in common sense.”

The man, now the one in charge of the airplane, taxied to the edge of the strip and waved to the good people left behind. They waved back. He made an S-turn to check for traffic. That was the only act that he made as a pilot. He hesitated. There was a struggle going on in that cockpit. The pilot forced the man to a compromise. The man turned east and back-tracked. How far? All the way! screamed the pilot. The man heard the crowd instead. Somewhere near the middle of that half mile of grass the man swung the airplane around and faced the slope.

The man held the brakes and eased up to full power. In moments, his feet released the bird to the air. The airplane bounced across the hummocks and passed the people on the ground. It was also still on the ground. This amazed the man. He should be flying. The slope ate at him and held him firm.

Finally, the huge wings took hold and hauled the man and his wife a foot or so above the slope. The airplane climbed with the land. It could not escape. Somewhere along this ground-effect journey the man turned to his bride and said, “We seem a bit heavy.” She smiled.

The man looked at the approaching line of wires. The hanging balls were vivid now. He glanced at the airspeed. It was not enough for anything but to stay where he was, skimming the ground like a spring swallow.

The pilot sat on the man’s shoulder and calmly said, Now is a good time to abort. Land the airplane and taxi back to where you should have started your takeoff and begin this whole mess again.

The man turned to the woman beside him and said, “Well, we could abort or go under the wires.”

That’s not what I said! shouted the pilot. Set it down and go back!

The man thought about this. There still was lots of time. The Maverick flew quite slowly. He looked at the space between the wires and the barbed wire fence beneath them. The option of flying under the wires had been in his head all along. Yet another piece of derring-do with which to marvel the crowd! He looked to his girl and smiled. “I guess we’re going under.”

He heard her voice in the headset, “OK.” It was as a clearance from the tower.

Fool, the pilot said and hung on.

The man eased the airplane up to the proper height and held it steady. Just beyond the fence ran a county road. He concentrated on the fence, the colored balls, and the two poles. He would pass between them all. Barely outside of his vision, on that county road, a car full of people was on their way to the fly-in. The car would meet the airplane at precisely the same place.

The man’s friend, now standing on the runway, saw the car. The people saw the car. Even the dog saw the car. They stood silent and watched.

The pilot was mute on the man’s shoulder. The man flew on and placed the airplane with the tractor engine squarely in the middle and shot through the space into the clear air beyond.

The people in the car suddenly saw the road ahead of them fill up with wings and slicing prop. The driver brought the car to a stop as the airborne apparition kissed the air across their bow.

The pilot said, That was close, you bloody idiot.

The man said, That wasn’t so bad.

“I thought you were going to die,” said my friend, later, on the phone. “Many of my neighbors were there. They don’t fly. They were asking me why you would do that. I think I mumbled something about you having engine trouble. The people in the car were scared. Did you even see the car?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t see any car.”

My friend is a good person. He is a true pilot. I apologized. I apologized again. It was not enough. It would never be enough. One of the main purposes of my friend’s fly-in was to promote flying. My stupid, total loss of judgment squashed the image of fly boys into a horrid thing.

Now I am merely a man who drives airplanes around. The pilot is still there, but he talks to me differently. Gone is the trust.

I promise to never let the man fly the airplane again.

Tom Schroeder is a pilot living in Alberta, Canada.