PRECISION
by William Thomas
So much for my fantasies of landing aboard an aircraft carrier! Rolling onto short final, the postage-stamp mountaintop my suicidal instructor wants me to land on looms way too fast. Though reassuringly lacking pitch and roll, precipitous drop-offs at each end of a runway that looks more like a high-wire logging road will be just as unforgiving of pilot error as the edge of any flight deck.
Almost there! With every nerve and notion shouting alarm, I pull on the rest of the flaps, allowing the nose to pitch up almost to the stall before bringing in gobs of power to keep us in the air.
Even with a patch of cracked pavement in the middle, a strip this rough is no friend to tricycle-gear airplanes. As the gravel under-run blurs close below, I cut the throttle, carrier-style, banging us down with a crash that indelibly signifies arrival. Even without arresting gear, our roll-out is very short.
The rough field take-off goes better. Mostly because I’m so eager to exit this place. Full flaps. Full power. Yoke waaay back to unload the nose wheel. Toe brakes released and again that terrible juddering over a badly rutted surface.
Forget finesse. With the airspeed bouncing around 50-knots, I heave Clyde Cessna’s Kansas creation bodily into the air. Barely flying, I quickly level off and begin milking up the flaps as the passing cliff edge gives way to vertiginous space and an unfolding clearcut moonscape as far as an incautious eye can see. Except for my heart rate, everything’s in the green.
Climbing into a perfect blue-sky day, the airplane and I exhale together. As we continue gaining height, Victoria International’s distant 5,000-foot main runway slides into view. Sharing the same thought, Two Two Tango and I bank towards salvation.
On this northeast heading, we should be flying at odd thousands. Or is it odd thousands plus five-hundred? Interrupting my flight instructor’s fervent prayers of gratitude, I key the intercom,: “How about three-thousand?”
“Fine,” says a disinterested voice in my headset. Whatever…
I start leveling off at 3,000 feet, thereby ensuring that we sail right on past my target altitude. By the time I get the rate-of-climb corralled, I’m a needle’s width — maybe 20 or 30 feet — too high. As if such a minor deviation matters. Enjoying the flight, with no immediate life-preserving intervention required, my companion is content. Clearly, I should be, too.
But I’m not.
The opening chapter of the first grown-up flying book I read as a kid nags at me. In his classic flying account, Fate Is The Hunter, Ernest K. Gann vividly recounts flying a commercial DC-3 into LaGuardia one night. And the sharp glance his co-pilot gave him when he interrupted their dreamlike flight beneath the stars by pulling back both throttles to lose what Gann describes as a “sloppy” 50-feet. Before the first officer could query his decision, another airliner thundered low over their cockpit’s cozy cocoon.
My instructor shoots me the same look when I similarly reduce a smidge of power to the Cessna’s 100-horsepower Continental engine. Our situation bears no resemblance to Gann’s. It’s daytime. Visibility is forever. No traffic is reported and there is not another airplane in sight. As the altimeter sags to “3000” and I bring up the revs to pin us there, I tell myself that precision matters.
Interestingly, in the very next instant my CFI’s face drains as white as Gann’s co-pilot’s. Half-turning, I’m astonished to see his countenance frozen in an identical rictus of terror, eyes bulging, mouth agape. But no scream emerges as an eagle’s six-foot wingspan flashes over our propeller and cockpit at a combined closing rate over 170 miles-per-hour.
A prop-strike with this much kinetic energy behind it could have unmounted the engine, resulting in an uncontrollable crash. If that big raptor had struck the windscreen instead — as happened to my father’s patrol plane over Korea — a blizzard of plexiglass, gore and gristle would have provided no less exciting entertainment.
This is what reading books can do for you. Along with anuncompromising meticulousness when at the controls of any machine.
Photo Captions
Thrilling mountaintop landing -youtube.com
Czech birdstrike -pina.cz