The Ups and Downs of Flying Machines

As Seen From the Cat Bird Seat

My lingering litany of Close Calls would not be complete without at least a mention of those halcyon days spent cruising over waving amber grains, glimmering seas of blue/green beauty and purple mountains’ majesty.

While our planes were based in the heart of drowsy east Texas, we flew all over the place, to both Coasts and as far north as Glacier, Montana, where we were close enough to throw rocks at Canada, but didn’t. We love our Canucks, Hi Victoria!

Our one and only International excursion went to the Bahamas, island home of the endearing Swimming Pigs and the empyrean Thunderball Grotto of 007 fame. Most of our flights were non-eventful, having long since faded into the ether. It’s those few that are etched into our memory by adventurous circumstance that we profile in today’s rambling missive.

But first, I must tell y’all that my heart just breaks for the poor souls who were not as fortunate, in the recent mid-air tragedy over the Potomac. It makes you cry, no matter what the cause is eventually determined to be. Ditto the recent crash in Philadelphia.

Having personally experienced at least three near-collisions, the disastrous details of these catastrophes hit very close to home. May they all Rest in Peace and may their family and friends somehow find solace, sooner rather than later, with the help of thoughts and prayers out here in the world for them. Click www.gofundme.com to financially assist those grieving such inconceivable losses of their loved ones.

Regarding my own flying career, I reference three near-misses, but there were likely quite a few more. Oftentimes we would never see the “bogey” but have to figure he’s out there, based on what Air Traffic Control and/or your onboard Traffic Detection system is yelping in your headset.

That’s when you employ the euphemistic head-on-a-swivel procedure. “See and avoid” is our main mantra and why pilots spend much of their time squinting out the window. Luckily the “big sky” concept works to save most of us, most of the time. We are saddened beyond words regarding those for whom it was too small. May we humans figure out a way to prevent these awful accidents, and soon.

Two of my incidents involved aircraft that just appeared out of nowhere, suddenly zooming by the windscreen, literally within spitting distance, and I really can’t spit that far. The third one involved a plane coming straight for us, and without the lightning quick reflexes of my instructor, who abruptly snatched the controls from me, we both would have perished, along with some other folks. Thanks Wilson, I owe you one, buddy.

Another gut puckering event happened a few years back on Father’s Day over Mobile Bay. Sorry if that’s a bad rhyme, guess I’m not much of a poet. The Cirrus SR-22 is a reliable, fast, capable and safe airplane, as evidenced by its status as the top-selling small aircraft in the world. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that the individual parts of any plane can instantaneously decide to stop playing well together. In that way I guess they’re only human, too.

On this fateful day, when the vibration started, my first thought was that the prop was going to fly off. Or fall off. Or whatever props do when they’re done doing their spinning thingy. To our tentative relief it wasn’t the propeller. When co-pilot Kim pulled up the engine monitoring display, we saw that one cylinder had gone cold. The good news was the other five were still hot and pounding.

Throttling back, we quickly parsed our options and informed Mobile Approach that we were returning to Pensacola for reasons of engine roughness. They were quick to hand us off, back to the P’cola guys, and wished us luck.

At the lower rpm’s, the vibration was much less tooth-rattling and we managed to limp back to KPNS airport and land without catching fire. Pensacola Approach had given us priority of course and diverted traffic out of our way. Great thanks to ATC everywhere. Hard to know how many times these quick-thinking angels have saved our bacon, but I’m guessing it’s a country bunch.

Turns out that one of our engine’s valves had opted for a brutal disintegration. Occurring as it did, in such rude fashion at 3,000 feet, it shook us to the core. I guess we handled the emergency well enough, only afterwards realizing the bullet we had dodged, courtesy of “the little engine that could.” We could have just as easily gone for an unscheduled swim in the big bay below.

When we learned that our kids in the back seat had been texting their friends with the message “We’re crashing!” we became a tad bit annoyed with them. But that was all, since prevailing law would have frowned upon our smacking their pointy little heads with a fly swatter. Ok, that’s not even a thing, just stop it.

In retrospect, we had quite a number of depart-the-plane-and-kiss-the-ground moments. The dusty dirt of Alpine, Texas got smooched after one especially harrowing ride. I guess it goes without saying that thunderstorms can really wreck the peace and joy of any given flight, and when both pilots have to trap their epileptic joysticks between their knees with both hands to keep the plane upright, you begin to suspect a suboptimal situation may be at hand. Holding an altitude in such violent turbulence was not even close to possible, but having visions of a wing snapping off … totally was.

Somehow we did not crack-up in flight, or throw up in flight, and really gained a whole new respect for the all-composite, German-made airplane called a Flight Design, as pictured above, our trusty Shark.

I’m guessing Wilbur and Orville would have been super proud of the strong and scrappy little bird that was built so many decades after their pioneering Kitty Hawk flight in 1903. And they would have really loved the onboard rocket-fired parachute, a.k.a. the Ballistic Recovery System (BRS is also standard in the Cirrus). Thankfully we never had to deploy the ‘chute, knock on wood.

The big award for the Craziest Looks from people on the ground goes to the good people of Floydada, Texas where we landed not just one, but two airplanes in a wild-arse, bucking bronc wind that was howling and gusting 50 mph. The comical part, if there even is one, was our thoroughly incongruous amphibious float plane bumping around out there in west Texas, one of the driest places on earth.

“Y’all finding any water?” quipped the airport hand, the rest of the clever crew standing by in a smirk. I almost told them how funny they were not. With such a treacherous, screaming gale, our Light Sports kept trying to take off on their own, but we managed to fuel them up and tie them down before they could get away. Thrilled to be back on terra firma, we were never so happy to eat liquor store barbecue and sleep in the Roach and Mouse Motel. In our minds, Hell had spat us out, right into Heaven.

Over the years we had a number of other nail-biters … like the time a crazed Red Wasp suddenly appeared in the cockpit and started buzzing our heads. Of course it just happened to be another rough and tumble day in the proverbial washing machine, with a sky chock-full of nauseating chop. Fortunately, my prior training in handling distractions kicked in, as I completely ignored the venomous Hymenoptera in my face and calmly flew the plane. I figured no worries unless he stung me on the eyeball, then all bets were off.

When Kim asked if I thought I could land us, I squawked back, “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have taken off!” Of course, that was before I knew what a hair-raising mess it was going to be up there that day. Note to self, order crystal ball.

So, for those intrepid aviators who endeavor to break the surly bonds of earth and embrace the beckoning skies above, Godspeed to all.

~~ j ~~

“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.”

~~ Orville Wright