This is one of my "entries from my log books" series of articles about more
than thirty years of flying. Because it pre-dates my having actually taken a
lesson there is no entry in my logs, just a spot in my memory dealing with
the first time that I almost bought the farm in an airplane.
The way to the sky for me was purely by accident. I had joined a Masonic
Lodge in Sacramento Ca. and my coach was a pilot by the name of Reed Wilson.
He was charged with teaching me the part of the ritual that has to be
memorized in order to move on in the Masonic order.
We became friends and chummed around some. One day Reed asked if I wanted
to go flying with him in a plane that he was a part owner of. Is the Pope a
Catholic? You betcha I wanted to go flying. I was in my late twenties and
had never been off of the ground.
We went out to Sacramento Municipal Airport and he drove to a hangar and
opened the door. Inside was this really neat plane. He explained that it was
a 1946 Cessna 140. He had been a part owner of it for some years and flew
when the mood struck.
I helped get it out of the hangar and he bolted me into the right seat. He
then started the engine and worked some magic with the radio and the control
tower answered and gave him permission to taxi to the active runway. From
this very first ride I didn't have any trouble understanding the
instructions from the tower. At first they didn't make any sense to me but I
understood every word. A few years before I had worked for the California
Division of Forestry as a radio dispatcher and it was like old times to talk
to someone on the radio.
So here we are, me at about 230 lbs. and Reed at a good 200 bolted into
this eighty-five horsepower two place airplane. It was early on a Saturday
morning in June and had not gotten up to Sacramento's usual high-nineties
and up temperature.
We successfully made the take-off on runway 20 and struggled up to
altitude. And I mean struggled. I was thrilled beyond belief by this my
first take-off and flight.
Reed then proceeded to head East, up over the Sierra Nevada Mountains to
Lake Tahoe. Now if you don't know about Tahoe it is over 6000 ft. above sea
level. We made it into South Tahoe airport by following highway 50 and
making a lot of turns and feints until we finally had terrain clearance to
get into the Tahoe basin.
We landed at Tahoe and parked the little Cessna. Reed had this thing for
Coca Cola and we went and found a Coke machine. He had ordered fuel on the
radio after we had landed.
We dawdled around the airport until about noon and then Reed announced that
it was time to go back to Sacramento.
We went out to the ramp and bolted ourselves back into that plane. Reed
called the tower and they gave us taxi clearance and we taxied out and did
what I later found out was a "run up" and after he was satisfied he called
the tower for take-off clearance. I remember that they told him that the
"density altitude" was some 8500 ft.. This didn't mean anything to me at the
time. We pulled out onto the runway, taking off to the North and he pushed
in the throttle and away we went, well sort of as a thirty-six hp. VW beetle
would have given us a good drag race.
After using all of the runway he finally pulled back on the wheel and we
sort of mushed into the air. We were flying through these trees which were
on both sides of the airplane. The clear area that we were flying in was the
fairway of a golf course. I looked to my left and noticed that Reed was
sweating like a Whore in church. I wondered why his knuckles were so white.
This horn kept going off in my ear and every time it went off he sweat a
little harder. I was still looking up at the trees and thought that the
golfers were a little rude what with all of the single fingers being pointed
our way and the way that they scattered and pulled their stupid little golf
carts out of the way as we played on through. The ones that weren't on their
faces eating grass shook their fists at us as we went by.
. I didn't know enough to be scared. However it started filtering through my
grey matter that it might be highly unusual to fly under the power lines and
so close to the cars on highway 50. Well we did just that. The best thing
that I noticed then was that the stupid horn had stopped blowing. We crossed
over the beach and were then flying over the water. We couldn't turn quite
yet as the plane was no more than fifty feet above the water.
We flew straight up the lake for what seemed to be forever. We were going
about 65-70 mph. according to the airspeed indicator. It is a good thing
that Tahoe is thirty-five miles long and that we were going up the lake in
the long direction. We hadn't gone any more than half-way up the lake when
we were indicating 7000ft. on the altimeter.
Lake Tahoe is in a giant bowl with high Sierra mountains on all sides. Reed
finally got enough altitude to fly toward the mountains on the East side of
the lake, which of course was the opposite direction from home. He had
regained his voice by this time and explained that he was going to show me
some soaring maneuvers. He said that the wind was from the west so the
eastern mountains would have some "lift". We circled around in some
thermals that he found and after about another half-hour we got enough
altitude to turn west and fly over Desolation Valley and back to Sacramento.
What can I say? This was the first time that I had a near death experience
in an airplane. I look back on the whole episode and it scares me silly to
this day. Reed was a "good" pilot in the sense that he handled the plane
very well. But I realized after I started taking lessons that he had not one
lick of common sense. He did almost kill us that day. The only thing that
saved us was that after he made all of his stupid mistakes he never stopped
flying that 140.
copyright 1996 all rights reserved
Robert Steuber
462 E. Main St.
Grass Valley, Ca. 95945
916-272-7871
Robert
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