Deadlines

“How long will it last?” I asked.

“There’s no way to know,” he shrugged. “I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. You really need to swap it out before it grounds you.”

I scheduled hip replacement surgery for 3.5 weeks hence, the doctor’s first available time slot. That would give me plenty of time to meet some obligations, the most pressing of which is always the deadline for my monthly column—the one you are now reading. That evening I considered some topics about which I might write, for me the most challenging aspect of creating a column. Just as I was about to put some “words to paper,” the pain increased dramatically—just as if it had been written into the script of a soap opera. The pain became so intense that I had difficulty crawling into bed. Writing something intelligent was impossible. I was in trouble.

It seemed to take forever for the sun to rise and the doctor’s scheduler to finally answer the phone. My wife, Dorie, pleaded with her for an earlier appointment. “You have the next available time slot,” the scheduler said. “The doctor will be on vacation next week.” Somehow, though, the god of compassion came to my rescue. The surgeon agreed to delay his vacation and provide me with a new hip a few days later, on Saturday.

It then dawned on me that this would cause me to miss the deadline for my column. I’m a devout procrastinator and deadlines have always been my nemesis. It appears that my archenemy would finally have its way; I would miss my first deadline in more than 58 years of writing for AOPA Pilot. Dorie and Tom Haines, AOPA’s editor in chief, however, crafted a plan that hopefully will not disappoint. It involves my preparing this explanation and then adding a condensation about something I had written a quarter-century ago. Yes, I would plagiarize myself. This would enable me to submit a column without having to craft something original. It would be about something you likely never read in the first place or forgot having read in the second. The following is from 1993.

It has been my good fortune to have known some remarkable pilots. One of my favorites was Frank Tallman, an aviator whose exploits as a movie pilot are the stuff of which legends are made. One of his best-known “stunts” involved flying a Twin Beech through a steel-rimmed billboard for the 1963 flick, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Moviegoers, however, never saw what happened after the Beech popped out the other side of the billboard. The dynamics of flying through thin plywood caused the propellers to bend, necessitating an immediate forced landing.

I recall sitting once with Tallman under the wing of his North American B–25 photo plane. His planned flight had been delayed by weather, and he had time to hangar fly with some of his admirers. We huddled in rapt attention, absorbing every word, pouncing on every morsel of aeronautical lore. He told us, for example, that weather causes him greater concern than the demands of performing for the camera. He then told us about a fascinating phenomenon that he said occurs when flying low in poor visibility.

When a pilot is scud running in gradually worsening conditions, he might glance rearward to appraise this escape option. But when looking aft, the pilot observes the landmarks disappearing into the veil of limited visibility behind the aircraft. This creates an illusion that leads him to believe that conditions behind are worsening or “closing up.”

Contributing to this deception is the notion that conditions ahead are improving. This is because the airplane’s forward motion allows progressively more of the landmarks ahead to come into view.

As a result, a pilot can be lured into believing that continuing straight ahead is his best option. He is reluctant to turn around while there remains time and opportunity to do so. Such an illusion—coupled with a pilot’s natural mindset to proceed with a planned course of action—likely is a factor in many scud-running accidents.

This phenomenon becomes more deceptive as airspeed increases. This is because the disappearance of objects behind the aircraft and the emergence of those ahead occur more quickly.

Some years after our hangar-flying session, Tallman used an object lesson to teach the aviation community more than he had intended. He taught that knowledge and experience are worthless unless put into practice. Frank Tallman—one of America’s finest pilots—was killed while scud running near his home airport.

BarrySchiff.com