I was going through my “morgue” the other day. That’s a news guy’s term for clippings of old news stories and columns. I found my yellowing 1971 column about taking a flying lesson and it rekindled an old spark.
I thought, back then, it would be an interesting and informative story for any youngsters planning to take to the sky some day. Anyway, that’s what I told my editor without confessing I’d always wanted to be a licensed pilot. Maybe now it’s not too late to put it on my bucket list.
So hop in my time machine and see what I went through on that 1971 summer’s day. My flight instructor was a seasoned chief pilot named Bob Plympton at the Morristown Municipal Airport. (Now Donald Trump’s New Jersey touchdown site.) After his pre-flight check of the single engine Cessna-150’s landing gear, struts, control surfaces and oil level, Bob reminded me, “There are no gas stations in the sky.”
We were soon up into the wild blue yonder. (Actually it was a partly cloudy day.) Morris County looked like an Esso road map in living color. Route 46 was below us, but it was not the neat red line of the map maker. It was gray and jammed with cars. Route 80 “under construction” didn’t have the line of red dashes. It was an ugly brown scar cutting across green fields and pushing aside hills.
Lake Parsippany was soon below us, a blue jewel glistening in the sun. And nearby was my house looking white and trim surrounded by an emerald lawn. At about 2,000 feet crabgrass and the few paint peelings were invisible.
Instructor Plympton nudged me and pointed to the controls. “Take over,” he commanded. “Let’s see you make a nice left turn.” I replied “Roger” like a veteran copilot, but it wasn’t convincing. Bob stopped checking for engine trouble when he realized the loud thumping was my heart.
The sleek little Cessna was responsive to the controls. I pressed the left rudder pedal sharply and gave a brisk twist to the yoke. The horizon tilted 90 degrees. I glanced out the window and was looking straight down into downtown Denville.
“Overcontrolling,” Bob said, was a common beginner’s mistake. He said the Cessna’s 100 horses needed only the gentlest touches to get the message. My right turn was smoother and almost horizontal.
At the straight and level the Cessna flew itself. A touch of the yoke, a tap of the pedal, was all that was needed. This was great! I was Eddie Rickenbacker, I was Charles Lindberg, I was Neil Armstrong, a born “flyer!
“I’m going to have you go into a stall now,” Bob said and, right then, Eddie, Charles and Neil bailed out. “Some pilots are sensitive enough to feel a stall coming on,” he said as a high-pitched noise shook the cabin
. “That’s a stall warning horn going off in case you’re not that sensitive,” he said. It sounded like the mating call of very determined moose.
“If I yell ‘Take over!” please do so at once,” I shouted. “You’re doing fine,” Bob replied and, as I lowered the nose, the moose stopped howling and the Cessna got a firm grip on the atmosphere.
I did it! I got us through a crisis! I looked down at Route 10 traffic and wondered why the drivers weren’t standing outside their cars, looking skyward and cheering. Another Cessna approached at one o’clock. I shook my fist at it and, under my breath, I muttered, “Curse you, Red Baron!”
As I walked to my car later, I thought I might manage the time and the money to earn a license, but, sadly, it never happened. I slipped behind the wheel of my single engine Chevy, adjusted my sunglasses, tossed my scarf over my shoulder and shouted, “Contact!”
Imagine That 