The bench in the secret garden looked inviting, so I lay along its length and idly watched an inbound jet slowly descend toward Traverse City’s Cherry Capital Airport. A passing single engine plane droned along high above it. I closed my eyes, enjoying the faint scent of autumn roses…
Bang! A terrifying 35-year old memory resurfaced.
February, 1976. Joe and I were new parents living in Santa Barbara, California. As a new physician he covered our expenses by working in an LA emergency room three nights a week. On free days we enjoyed our beautiful daughter together. I loved being mom to three-month-old Jenny, but Joe diagnosed a mild case of restlessness. “Take an occasional morning off and learn something new, Dee.”
I thought about it. Maybe he was right.
Ha! I’d learn to fly! Always wanted to. The airport was close, and lessons were affordable. Gas was really cheap then, and instructors were eager to teach aviation skills to anything that walked and talked sensibly. Joe thought it a splendid idea. Setting aside one morning a week I enrolled in ground school, studied hard, and passed the written tests. Neil, my no-nonsense instructor, taught me the art of flying in the school’s lumbering Cessna 150s, which were very forgiving of students’ awkwardness.
For months Neil had hammered home a lesson. “No matter what happens - bird hits, engine failure, smoke in the cockpit, any sudden emergency - fly the damn airplane. React emotionally to unexpected events ‘upstairs’ only when you’re safely on the ground.”
He’d cut the engine, stall the plane, begin a spin, or even turn me nearly upside down until I learned to stop unraveling and address each novel situation. I flew the airplane.
The FAA guy awarded me my license after I’d passed his rigorous flying test - (if he’d had to touch the controls even once, I’d have flunked) - and now I flew to interesting places one morning a week.
One day, after filing a VFR flight plan, I pre-flighted a rental Cessna, hopped in, taxied out per ground control’s orders, and was cleared for takeoff. The plane rose obediently while I dialed in relevant data crisply issued by Santa Barbara Control.
What a beautiful day!
About one minute into my ascent to 5000 feet, the radio transmitted an urgent new order. “Ah, Cessna 40690- this is Santa Barbara Control: immediately turn right 90 degrees while descending 500 feet!”
Wha…? This was a weird deviation from my previous clearance.
“Roger that,” I responded, changing course even as I repeated the order.
The radio crackled. Hearing a most unprofessional “God…” I looked out ahead, and gasped. A blue passenger jet had just materialized from a fluffy cloud slightly above my previous flight level: in a few seconds our noses would have merged. I heard a muffled cheer from the tower as it passed over me and continued its orderly descent. Leveling the wings I trimmed the plane and carried on with my newly assigned altitude and heading.
Turns out the guy, in training as an air traffic controller, had managed to miss the incoming passenger jet on his radar screen when assigning me my flight path. Fortunately his overseer had noticed.
Saucer-eyed but calm, I continued out to sea for another mile before a different controller cleared me to move back inland and resume my flight plan. He allowed himself two words: “Nice job.”
I flew on to Santa Cruz, landed slick as spit, parked the plane, and then – and only then – trembling on the tarmac, wet my pants.
Neil had taught me well.
Bang! A terrifying 35-year old memory resurfaced.
February, 1976. Joe and I were new parents living in Santa Barbara, California. As a new physician he covered our expenses by working in an LA emergency room three nights a week. On free days we enjoyed our beautiful daughter together. I loved being mom to three-month-old Jenny, but Joe diagnosed a mild case of restlessness. “Take an occasional morning off and learn something new, Dee.”
I thought about it. Maybe he was right.
Ha! I’d learn to fly! Always wanted to. The airport was close, and lessons were affordable. Gas was really cheap then, and instructors were eager to teach aviation skills to anything that walked and talked sensibly. Joe thought it a splendid idea. Setting aside one morning a week I enrolled in ground school, studied hard, and passed the written tests. Neil, my no-nonsense instructor, taught me the art of flying in the school’s lumbering Cessna 150s, which were very forgiving of students’ awkwardness.
For months Neil had hammered home a lesson. “No matter what happens - bird hits, engine failure, smoke in the cockpit, any sudden emergency - fly the damn airplane. React emotionally to unexpected events ‘upstairs’ only when you’re safely on the ground.”
He’d cut the engine, stall the plane, begin a spin, or even turn me nearly upside down until I learned to stop unraveling and address each novel situation. I flew the airplane.
The FAA guy awarded me my license after I’d passed his rigorous flying test - (if he’d had to touch the controls even once, I’d have flunked) - and now I flew to interesting places one morning a week.
One day, after filing a VFR flight plan, I pre-flighted a rental Cessna, hopped in, taxied out per ground control’s orders, and was cleared for takeoff. The plane rose obediently while I dialed in relevant data crisply issued by Santa Barbara Control.
What a beautiful day!
About one minute into my ascent to 5000 feet, the radio transmitted an urgent new order. “Ah, Cessna 40690- this is Santa Barbara Control: immediately turn right 90 degrees while descending 500 feet!”
Wha…? This was a weird deviation from my previous clearance.
“Roger that,” I responded, changing course even as I repeated the order.
The radio crackled. Hearing a most unprofessional “God…” I looked out ahead, and gasped. A blue passenger jet had just materialized from a fluffy cloud slightly above my previous flight level: in a few seconds our noses would have merged. I heard a muffled cheer from the tower as it passed over me and continued its orderly descent. Leveling the wings I trimmed the plane and carried on with my newly assigned altitude and heading.
Turns out the guy, in training as an air traffic controller, had managed to miss the incoming passenger jet on his radar screen when assigning me my flight path. Fortunately his overseer had noticed.
Saucer-eyed but calm, I continued out to sea for another mile before a different controller cleared me to move back inland and resume my flight plan. He allowed himself two words: “Nice job.”
I flew on to Santa Cruz, landed slick as spit, parked the plane, and then – and only then – trembling on the tarmac, wet my pants.
Neil had taught me well.