 |
|
|
Night Flight
|
On August 10, 1999, I posted an essay titled, "WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU CANNOT FLY." A year later, I faced the same problem again. Changing jobs, moving, getting back with my wife all impacted on my schedule. It took four months for me to get into the air. In the mean time, I read and wrote about aviation. I visited airports and museums. Finally, I had the time and the money. All I needed was an instructor.
I was in Dallas on business. This assignment started November 7 and runs through December 29. I got in a lot of flying in the main cabin of American DC80s before I found instruction at Redbird, six miles southwest of Dallas. My instructor was Daniel Walther, a new guy with 800 hours since March. Gray and gaunt, he left a career in computing in France to fly in America.
Like most people, I work during the day and November days are short. However, I took advantage of the situation. I need the nighttime now anyway, having gotten ten hours of solo last summer. I opted for the Cessna 172, a plane I had been in a few times while training in 152s. When we hit the landing light, it did not come on. "We cannot fly," Daniel said. "We can take a low wing," I suggested. We got into a Tomahawk.
Meeting, talking, and swapping planes used up a lot of time, but I flew three landings. Redbird is controlled, so I got to practice tower calls. Flying at night is beautiful. Even though the first night was cloudy, the lights of Dallas were a galaxy of wonder for me.
The second night, I got 1.4 hours on the Hobbs. We flew from Redbird to Midway. I demonstrated steep turns. We simulated an emergency engine out.
The sky was clear. Next to the fulling Moon were Jupiter and another Planet. Venus was still in the West. When I can solo at night, it will be just me and the stars. Having a flight instructor in the cabin reminds me of the joke of wanting to die like my grandfather, in my sleep, not yelling and carrying on like his passengers.
Midway was uncontrolled but someone was in the office to take our call. A jet was due in, but we did our TNGs and flew home in plenty of time.
One thing about night is that there are fewer clues and cues. The ones you see stand out, but it was honestly a bit disconcerting not to see what was between the power lines and the outer markers. As it was, it was grass. If it had been trees, this story would be more interesting, if written at all.
The Tomahawk gets called a "Traumahawk" because Piper answered CFI input and built a plane that could spin easily. (I did not spin the plane, but my instructor seemed more alert as we turned final.) It is sportier and more responsive to handle than a C152 or C172. The low wing requires an electric fuel pump that has to be managed. The flaps extend manually with a lever and I never got the feel of that in two sessions. Landing was easy. The high T-tail brings the nose up sharply in the flare at landing.
My last lesson learned was my need for proper corrective lenses. My bifocals are sunglasses. I had them cut for flying with a sharp division between Near and Far. At night I had only my Driving glasses and my Reading glasses. The first night was hopeless with me fumbling for my glasses, but the second night, I found a checklist in BIG TYPE and used only my Driving glasses, reading under them as needed. The instrument panel was initially a challenge, but I trusted Piper not to count H, 2, 8 4, 5, 8, H, 8, 8, H0, HH,... Even so, it took some effort to read and understand the airspeed indicator and that is the final fact.
You cannot guarantee that nothing will ever get in the way of flying. However, the difference between taking a breather and dropping out is what you do when you are not flying. I stayed active in and around aviation. Getting back into the cockpit was easy, even though or perhaps because the flying was a challenge. |
Michael E. Marotta
mercury@well.com
Technical Writer
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
