Chapter Twelve

Courage

Friday July 14, 2006

Anticipating a problem due to past results made me have to muster up a bunch of courage that I really didn't want to have to work my way through. Anticipation made for a tough evening.

Dale finished the wing by eleven in the morning. I had most of the day and rest of the evening to think of the future. While Dale was working all I had to do was think about was "the now." It was easier to think and work on the task at hand.

I was up early. Four thirty AM. Gather all my stuff and do a dummy walk of the motel room to see that I had everything. Call the weather service to see what kind of day they were forecasting. Secretly hoping that I wouldn't have to fly today. No luck. The weather was forecast as great, double great. Clear, no clouds and no wind. Gotta go.

When I got to the airport I had to make myself work through any hesitation. I couldn't afford the time loss. Clear my mind and do what I know I can do. Fly.

Yesterday I made sure all things that needed to be full were full. I greased the engine with four pumps from the grease gun for each rocker arm. There are ten of them so I start the same place each time and work my way around the five cylinder radial until I get back to where I started. I checked the oil and filled the gas tank up into the filler neck. Every ounce of gas counts. My plane has no generator or lights but it does have a battery to electric start the engine and run the radio and GPS. I took the battery out and asked the shop guys to charge it. By evening the battery was full and I put it back in the plane.

I packed the plane with my stuff, clothes, spare parts and the other things I thought might come in handy. I have two radios, one in the plane and the other is a hand held one in case I find myself on the ground somewhere that I shouldn't have ended up. It's one of the aviation phrases I love the most. It's called “an off airport landing”. I also have two emergency locating transponders. One is a loaner from wonderful Morgan who sold me the plane. I could see seller's remorse welling up in his eyes the day I finally paid him. The other transponder I brought along to be installed in the plane but with Morgan's loaner and mine I have two. It's a good thing.

Pre-flight the plane. I gotta make sure all the things that were on the plane last time I flew it are still there. I think about looking at little odds and ends. It's the fear again. The little odds and ends are still going to be there. I checked them yesterday. I think, "Just fly the plane. It's going to be OK."

Radial engines make kind of an oily mess so each time I finish the pre-flight I go inside to wash the grease and oil off my hands. One more opportunity to self distract. I say out loud, "Get focused, get a drink of water for the cotton mouth and get outta here."

I pull the prop through by hand to be sure the bottom cylinders are clear from hydraulic lock and get dressed in my homeless shirt and fingerless gloves. The engine starts and purrs. I feel good.

The wind is directly down the runway at fourteen knots. It's steady. The sun is just up and I'm easily off. The guy in the tower says, "See ya, have a safe flight."

I don't have a name for the plane yet but I reach outside my little office into the blast from the propeller and pat the plane on the side and say, "Here we go, old friend." It's corny but it's true. I do it every time we fly. It might be caused by the cowboy wannabe I try to keep suppressed. Maybe if I had a different name it would be easier.

With a little engine management I climb to eight thousand five hundred feet. It's not like a car. I have to tweak and coax it so it'll run well in the thin air. I have levers to push and pull to get the fuel/air mixture correct. It needs to breathe easily at this altitude.

Interstate Ninety twists and curves and I'm able to cut some corners off by going straight when it's safe to do so. The passes I have to go through are six thousand five hundred feet. I have lots of room to spare. I'm no daredevil. I have taken mountain flying lessons from Long and have flown in the Cascades and the Olympics often. I do like mountain flying. It has it's own tricks but once you learn them it's as safe as flying in the flatlands.

From Billings I go GPS direct to Livingston and then hook up with I-90 and go through the pass to Bozeman. I call the tower and ask to fly through their air space at a somewhat unorthodox altitude. I'm down to seven thousand two hundred feet. It's not easy to keep this old bird at eight thousand five hundred feet. I'm supposed to be at eight thousand five hundred feet or six thousand five hundred feet. Six thousand five hundred feet is full of rocks. When flying West it's even thousands plus five hundred feet altitude. When flying East it's odd thousands plus five hundred feet. It keeps us pilots from banging into each other head on.

This part of the Rockies seems to be older mountains as they have well rounded tops. I see someone has found something valuable and dug a big hole here just West of Bozeman. My guess is that it's copper. My guess is that it is closed due to clean up costs. It seems that if we make it too costly to clean up, the mine files bankruptcy and dumps the costs on us. We put it on the Super Fund list. How super is the Super Fund?

I take the next pass to Butte where I have scheduled a stop for gas. It's taken two hours and forty minutes to get here. My gas gage reads empty. I built it to read empty and still have a quarter tank for reserve. Risk management. The wind is calm and I can pick any of the four runways I want. I take the one that leaves me at the gas pumps when I finish the landing. I don't want to land somewhere and taxi a mile. I can't see ahead while on the ground and have to do 'S' turns and look out the side. A mile taxi is a mile and a quarter for me.

I'm down about half an hour. Buy gas, grease the rockers with a pump each and I'm off.

I expected some drama to the trip to Missoula. I didn't get it.

Missoula has a tower so I have to talk to someone about my landing there. You see at a little airport I can over fly the field and look at the windsock. It's low tech, just like my plane. The windsock is usually near the center of where two or more runways cross. It points. I pick the runway that matches the windsock and land. It's not complicated. At a towered airport you have to listen to a different radio frequency than the tower to get the weather. Then you change frequency and tell the tower that you have heard the weather. Then they tell you what runway to land on. The system is designed for modern planes that can land with quite a strong cross wind. I find what works for me is to get close to landing while looking for the windsock and then ask the tower for the current wind conditions. Then I'll ask for the runway that matches the windsock. They always clear my request. At Missoula I flew the full length of the long runway on the tower and terminal side and made a one eighty turn to the left and landed in the other direction on the same runway they had first cleared me to land on. It was great and a mistake. Oh, it wasn't a problem with the tower guys. We had it worked out so it was good for both of us. The problem was that every airport rat heard my five cylinder radial and came out of the woodwork. It looked like I was on parade when I flew the whole length of the airport to land in the other direction. I had no idea.

My first hint is from a guy in a Gulf Stream multi-million dollar jet. The ground controller has cleared him to taxi to the runway. I freeze and stop where I am and ask the ground controller for some help as I don't want to get blown up into a paper wad by this giant blow torch. Between the three of us we work it out. They let me go first. I'm taxiing in front of the Gulf Stream and the pilot asks me what kind of plane I'm in. I tell him it's a 1929 Bird and as sincerely as I have ever heard any one be on the radio be he says, "Six Zero Yankee, wanna trade?" I said, "No, thank you for the offer though." I probably didn't want to go where he had to go anyway.

I see a ground handler signaling me where to park and taxi up and shut down. Here come the Airport Rats.

One of the cars holds a Grandfather and his fourteen year old Grandson. The Grandfather tells me proudly that the kid already has six and a half hours in his logbook. I decided to focus on the kid and tell him the story of my airplane and trip and let the others listen. It sure beats answering the same questions four times. I let the kid climb in my office and sit down. He gives me his new digital camera so I can take his picture while he’s sitting in the cockpit. When he gets out I give him my camera. He took the picture of me.

I really do like feeling stupid at the end of some days. Not all, but some. Today I was having trouble getting a room near my budget. I'm now starting my eighth week in a three week trip. I left my budget somewhere around Chapter four. I couldn't get a reasonable room here because the International Choral Festival is here. I said, "Why would they have the Choral festival here? We're so far from the ocean." Everybody laughed. About two hours later I found out they were singers. My day is complete.