CAA: GA News, "Airport wanderer gets license again"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

March 31, 2000

Airport wanderer gets license again
By Ron Roat
The Evansville Courier & Press


The airplane had crouched near the north end of the tarmac during the entire
air show, its canopy back, its polished body masked by airplanes billed
earlier in the air show.

Finally a man in dark boots and a red jacket climbed in and fired up the
V-12. Smoke, then flame, poured from the exhaust portals, and the engine
settled into a spirited idle. When the four blades chopped at the air I knew
what I’d come to see. The World War II fighter pivoted and edged its way
toward the 5,000-foot runway that I would someday learn to call “two-zero.”
Minutes later the P-51 Mustang escaped the concrete and climbed into the
clouds.

Families attend air shows to see cute little yellow planes with charming
smoke trails. There are often helicopter formations and fly-overs from
nearby National Guard groups. You can get within 10 feet, but do not touch,
some first-class twin-engine business aircraft. But pilots (and some like me
who might become pilots) go to see airplanes like the Mustang.

After a couple of passes over the field, the Mustang took a wide left turn
over Centerville, Ohio. A slim but noticeable dark trail began to follow in
its slipstream. The gentle left turn continued until the fighter advanced on
the field in a low dive. If you listened you would discover that the pilot
had pushed the throttle as far as he could. The Mustang screamed across the
field about 25 feet off the deck, not the wimpy 100 feet or so later
mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. I spun around and signed up
that day for flight training.

That was more years ago than I care to count. Within 18 months, though, I
had a Piper Cherokee parked in the grass at that field, by then known as
Dayton General South. I flew it to Michigan, West Virginia, Florida and
Pennsylvania. It took me to New Orleans, Miami and Cleveland. I landed it on
grass strips you could barely see on rich men’s islands, farm fields and one
airplane junkyard. I parked it between two Lear jets in downtown Chicago and
walked to the hotel. Sometimes you can park a plane cheaper than you can
park a car.

There have been bad times and stupid times, of course. I flew a
Grumman-American Tiger into a Florida storm, and I was lucky to live through
the day. A FAA official chewed me out for 45 minutes, and I agreed with his
assessment of my intelligence. On one hazy late afternoon over Southern
Georgia, two instruments on the dash of my Beech Musketeer Super III
disagreed fiercely on which way was up. One of them rests on a bookshelf
near me to remind me to promptly scrutinize instruments the moment they
begin to deviate from the known laws of physics.

However, there’s nothing like flying. One hour in the air is better therapy
than hours with a psychologist. Slice through the edge of clouds, pull
through some 60-degree turns and make two or three perfect landings on a
horribly windy day. You look back at that insignificant gray smudge on the
Earth – your city that fills you with stress – and wonder what could have
been so important to cause you to be so miserable.

The cobwebs withdraw, the mind settles and you are ready to boldly paint
outside the numbers again.

Of course, I fly and then I don’t fly. I went to graduate school and stopped
flying. I became a professor and stopped flying. I had to choose between a
Musketeer and a house, and I stopped flying. Now I’m at another moment when
flying seems the healthier choice.

I asked the FAA to send me another copy of my license – the original remains
misplaced – and yesterday I scheduled a flight physical. Soon I hope to show
an instructor that I can control a Cessna Skyhawk through power-on stalls,
accuracy landings and short field takeoffs.

Until then, you’ll find me occasionally lingering around hangars taking in
the aroma of spilled aviation fuel. There’s nothing like it anywhere.

*****************************************
California Aviation Alliance: General Aviation Airport List E-mail Commands
To subscribe to the GA News List, send an email, from the email account you wish to receive your posts on, addressed to listserv@californiaaviation.org and place the following in the first line of the body of the message:
 Subscribe ganews YourFirstName YourLastName YourJobTitle YourAirport/Company 

To unsubscribe from the GA News List, send an email, from the email account you have been receiving your posts on, addressed to listserv@californiaaviation.org and place the following in the first line of the body of the message:
 Unsubscribe ganews YourFirstName YourLastName