I don’t
remember exactly when my interest in aviation started. It’s always just sort of
been there. My earliest memory of being on an airplane, was young me tinkering with the
emergency exit on a DC-9 on a KLM flight from Oslo to Amsterdam. At home, I regularly leafed through an English book titled ‘The Airline
Pilot’, from the Macdonald First Library. It was published in 1970 and had pretty pictures of BOAC VC-10s, and
of happy passengers being served lobster.
Growing up
in early 80s Eindhoven, in the Netherlands was a mixed experience. There
were plenty of books on airplanes at the library, and my family bought me
plenty of my own. There was a military air base just a few
kilometres away, and our house sat right in the approach path. In my mind I can
still hear the sound of the Rolls-Royce Dart engines that powered the
Fokker F-27 aircraft coming in to land. Pairs of F-104 Starfighters from
Gilze-Rijen Air Base, and NF-5s from the local 314 Squadron screamed overhead almost daily. We would sometimes drive past the airport, where I
was mesmerized by the preserved Supermarine Spifire that sat on a pedestal
in front of the officer’s mess.
The first
airplane that really made a huge impression on me was a Singapore Airlines Boeing
707 at Amsterdam Schiphol airport. With its golden
yellow and almost purple-blue cheat line on a crisp white background, it was a beautiful bird indeed. Like many boys before me, I decided that when I grew up I wanted to be a pilot. For years it was one of the few
things I talked about. I desperately
wanted to learn to fly, but the expense in Europe at the time (and still…)
meant that this was not going to be a realistic possibility. I got pangs of jealousy whenever I saw a
blip on the TV about some kid flying in a Piper or a Cessna in America. Over there this
sort of thing looked like it was a lot more accessible.
When I was 10, I developed an interest in radio controlled planes. During
my sister’s horse riding lessons in nearby Son, I usually wandered down to the RC club on the other side of the field. I learned quite a
lot about those things there. Including that it was also not the
cheapest of hobbies. I built a wooden glider model that I bought with saved up
pocket money. It flew reasonably well in a straight line but that was about as
exciting as it would get. It was designed for a winch launch to altitude, after
which a timer (which I couldn’t afford) flipped up the horizontal stabilizer. The thing would then soar down and make a controlled landing. The second plane I built was a ‘Taxi
2’. It was a German Graupner kit that was loosely based on American Cessna
aircraft. It was a motorized airplane, requiring a real engine and a very expensive
radio control unit. This was completely beyond the limits of my pocket allowance. When we left the Netherlands to go to Singapore, I donated the airplane to my school where as far as I know, it hung from the ceiling for several
years.
In the
summer of 1987 I got my first taste of what it was like to fly a real airplane.
I was staying with my aunt and uncle in the Belgian town of Grimbergen, while
my parents were away on an English language course. This was about four months
before we moved to Singapore. My uncle and I took a bike ride out to the local
airport on a sunny afternoon where we spoke to a local pilot. My uncle talked him into taking us up in his Piper Cherokee in
exchange for a modest sum of money, and a few beers (this was Belgium after
all). We flew around the Brussels area for about half an hour, and he let me
take the controls. I can assure you that for those few minutes 12 year old me was king of the world. That flight was quite possibly the best
early birthday present ever.
In Singapore
my interest continued. We
knew several Dutch and Belgian expatriate pilots and engineers who worked for
KLM and Singapore Airlines. I remember many talks about what it was like to fly
747s and the prototype Airbus A300. My school's library had several magazine subscriptions. One of these was for the magazine ‘Flight International’. I spent
a lot of my lunch breaks reading back issues. Every month the
latest issue would glow from its shelf like the holy grail. Competition for it
was fierce. I once almost got into a
physical altercation with another student over who got to read the
‘Farnborough Special’ first. I wanted to fly more than ever. Singapore had a
local flying club, but just as in Europe it was a very expensive activity.
In the
summer of 1994 I was in Ohio in the USA, studying music at Denison University. I
had a part-time summer job taking care of the rats in the psychology building.
It was my first ever paid job and it provided a small income. I was scheduled to
attend a jazz course in early August at Manhattan School of Music in New York. I looked forward to meeting Gerry Mulligan, the legendary baritone sax
player who I had listened to so much back in high school. But then something
happened one afternoon at the University library.
I was reading an issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology and was overcome
by a sense of finality. I was having visions of flying and all my
senses told me, that if was ever going to do this for real, now was the time to either shit or get off the pot. I called New York, cancelled the course, and got a refund.
Two weeks later when the money was in the bank, I asked a fellow student to drive me to the local flying school in Newark. I purchased my flight theory books, and got
an idea of what this project was going to cost. Even in 1994 dollars it was
surprisingly affordable. The school’s primary trainer was a Cessna 152 which
rented out at $37/hour including fuel. Dual instruction was an extra $20 on top
of that, but it was still doable. Our music department secretary was kind
enough to loan me her son’s old bicycle so I had some form of getting to and
from the airport seven miles away. I had neither a car nor a driver’s license
at the time.
My first
ever flying lesson was a totally different
experience from what I had anticipated. I had seen many cockpit videos of
airliners taking off, and I was assuming it would all be somewhat similar... My instructor did not want to use headphones,
and we were basically shouting at each other over the deafening engine noise.
The rudder pedals felt very loose, and I was winding all over the place while
taxiing. My instructor was also a bit of a grump and I often wondered if he
actually enjoyed flying. Take off felt completely
out of control. There was no highly coordinated calling out of ‘100 knots’,
‘cross check’, ‘V1’, ‘rotate’, as I had observed in those videos. The machine shuddered as I advanced the throttle, and at around 60
knots it kind of merrily jumped into the air on its own. It was a short flight, and a very sweaty one.
Landing was a definite ‘arrival’, and marked my first experience of hearing
the Cessna’s stall horn go off. The next
few lessons were not much better and I started to wonder whether this had been
such a good decision after all.
Some weeks
later Oscar the Grouch got sick and I ended up flying with Steve, the head
instructor and airport manager. This was a turning point. The other
instructor was doing his job primarily to build flight time toward his Airline Transport license. Steve was a little older and had no ambition of
ever flying jets. He was a flight instructor because he wanted to teach. During our first lesson together he taught me the technique for controlling those finicky rudder pedals. My taxiing at long last stopped resembling the sinuous crawl of a python. In the air, he showed me how to trim the airplane for level
flight. It felt much more controlled all of a sudden, and I was gaining some semblance of confidence. At the end of the lesson, he insisted I fly with him
from then on.
I got very
comfortable with that little Cessna and on one beautiful late afternoon in the
fall of 1994, a little bit of magic happened. At the
end of our lesson I taxied the Cessna up onto the ramp. To my surprise, Steve
told me to keep the engine running and hand him my log book. He endorsed it for solo flight. It was getting late, but he told me if I hurried up,
I’d have time for one lap around the circuit.
As he
walked back into the small brick building that served as the flight school my
heart rate went through the roof. I released the brakes and taxied back out. I did my engine run-up and methodically went through the departure
checks. No approaching aircraft on base or final. On board alone for the very first time, I made the radio call:
“Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
departing runway 27 staying in the pattern.”
I taxied
onto the ‘piano keys’ and had a huge rush of excitement running through
my veins. I put down 10 degrees of flaps, released the brakes, and gave it the
beans. This was the single most exciting moment of my life up till then. The
images of those cockpit videos came flooding back and that little Cessna
might as well have been a commercial jet. Just for fun (it was my moment so I
figured what the hell) at 55 knots I called out ‘V1, rotate’, and pulled back
on the control column.
As the
ground slowly dropped away, the blanket of pastel greens, yellows, and pinkish
reds, so typical of a Midwestern autumn revealed itself below me. As I
climbed out into the diminishing sunlight, the prominent spire of Swasey chapel stood in
the distance off to my right. There was my University campus. I retracted the flaps.
“Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning crosswind 27.”
I banked
the plane to the left and continued to climb to the traffic pattern altitude of
2000ft. My arms, hands and face were numb from the rush of adrenalin. The
reality of what I was doing was very clear. I pulled back the black throttle
knob and let the engine settle into cruise RPM. As I levelled off, I caught the
grayish blue light shimmering off Buckeye lake, just a few miles in front. Several thousand feet above me a jet descended to the International airport
at Columbus.
“Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning downwind for 27.”
I made
another 90 degree turn to the left and started thinking about my first
solo landing. There was no wind that afternoon. The
pleasant numbness and tingling in my arms and face continued. As I passed the
end of the runway I pulled out the carburettor heat and reduced the throttle
for approach. The airspeed bled off, and as the needle entered the ‘white arc’
I lowered the flaps back down to 10 degrees.
“Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning base, runway 27.”
Continuing
the gradual descent, I lowered the flaps to 20 degrees and looked to my right
for any eight -engined monsters that might be trying to get to the airport before
me. Indian Mound Mall, the shopping
center where I usually hung out on Friday nights came into view.
“Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
turning final for runway 27.”
I banked to
the left at thirty degrees, applying light left rudder to keep the turn
coordinator ball in the center. It was drilled into my head that stalling on
the turn to final approach was one of the most common fatal accidents for student
pilots. In front of me was the 4000ft length of Runway 27. To my delight the PAPI lights showed two reds and two whites. I was on the correct glide slope for landing, and
would theoretically miss the tall trees that were in the middle of the approach
path. I lowered the flaps to 30 degrees and reduced my airspeed to 55 knots. When I crossed the runway threshold I pulled the throttle to idle and slowly lifted the nosewheel up by pulling back on the controls.
The main
gear touched down with a gentle screech. I lowered the nose and applied the toe brakes. I turned off onto
the taxi way and grinned like a Cheshire Cat.
“Newark traffic, Cessna 53398
clear of the active runway.”
I taxied
onto the ramp and shut the aircraft down. As the whirring of the gyroscopic
instruments died away, I opened the door and stepped out. The crisp evening air smelled alive, electrified almost. It was
slightly chilly in my t shirt. As I placed the yellow wooden chocks around the
wheels, and retrieved my flight bag from the cockpit I inhaled slow and deep. Completely
in the moment with just one single thought: Holy crap I just soloed…
