Chapter Ten,

Tuesday July 12, 2006

I'm in Billings, Montana.

I wanted to write a little about the smells in an open cockpit biplane. There have been times I have been flying under the birds. I passed a radio tower that was six hundred feet taller than I was flying. On my first day I was flying along the Atlantic Coast of Long Island, New York at five hundred feet and could smell the ocean. Near Cedar Rapids, Iowa I was surprised by the smell of dog food. There under me was the Ralston Purina plant. I flew over a stockyard in Iowa. I could smell the money. Today, cruising through North Dakota I could smell new mown hay, fresh cut wheat and dust. As I got to higher ground I could smell the Pine trees just before I got to Billings, MT. Near Billings there is a forest fire and I could smell the smoke.

Uncle Buck

In the world of general aviation there are courtesy cars at all the small airports. When you get to a small airport by plane and need to go to town the airport will lend you a car. I love the junkers the most. Usually it is a nice new car but when out in the Fan Belt, North Dakota or Flat Tire, Arkansas it's usually a beater. My family and I once got a car that had golf ball size dents everywhere. It had been in a hailstorm. It had all new windows because they had all been broken by the hail but the body was unbelievable. It looked like a huge green dimpled golf ball.

Yesterday, in Hettinger, North Dakota I got "Uncle Buck". It's the green Buick in the picture. I loved Uncle Buck. It had fan belt squeal until it warmed up. It went a little sideways down the road. Uncle Buck had been in a tornado and had great dents on all sides and the top. Uncle Buck and I went "Honkey Tonkin' " in Hettinger. The picture of Main Street, Hettinger is all of Main Street, Hettinger. Notice the cars are all parked on the shady side of the street?

Main Street

The guys that hang around airports are called "Airport Rats." My biplane gathers them as if it were cheese. At Pierre the fuel truck driver came up with a smile and waited for me to shut down. I have to idle the engine for two minutes before I turn it off. He had a big smile so when I took my helmet off I said, "So, what do you think"? He said, "I've seen worse." My trip from the East Coast is taking its toll. A little while later a really old guy came up with a group of friends and said, "See, I told you it was a Bird. I could tell before it even landed. My first ride was in a Bird when I was twelve years old. I puked right there in the front seat." There are aliens in the good ol' US of A. They live in the northern states. It's a hundred degrees in the summer and forty below zero in the winter. No human being will live like that.

Notice the wind sock on top of Hettinger hangar? Straight out.. and it's a hundred degrees too.

When I left Hettinger early this morning I had a twenty mile an hour head wind above five hundred feet. I dropped down like a crop duster and went bug smashing. No wind down there. I probably will never get out here again. I probably will never get to fly like that again. I had big tears. I flew over a hundred miles down low, really low. I had to pull up to get over the fences and power lines. See the video “Low Flight” It’s impressive. At least I’m impressed by it. I did about an hour and a half like that. Lots of full concentration to keep from banging into things. What fun.

The Federal Aviation Agency, the FAA, is not a popular government agency in the world of small aviation. The basic feeling is that they are trying to regulate small planes out of the sky. Everyone speaks of seeing the end of the little plane sometime in the future. Today I heard the new motto of the FAA. "We're not happy until you're not happy."

Tomorrow I climb over the Rockies. Weather permitting.