My husband took the lessons and learned to fly, but sometimes he’d come home, sit on the sofa and shake. Soon after he got his license, he took me on my first ride in a small airplane. There we were, in a vehicle that looked about as sturdy as a cereal box, barreling down a runway at a speed that didn’t seem any more capable of getting us off the ground than those amusement-park rides had. Then the plane rose, hovering over the trees, and, unlike the park rides, there was nothing anchoring us to the earth, a fact more apparent in a small airplane than in a big one.
To my surprise, I was frightened. OK, terrified. When we got home, it was my turn to sit on the sofa and shake. Part of my fear resulted from the deep-seated belief that small airplanes were inherently dangerous. And part came from worrying about such basic questions as: Aren’t those gazillion knobs and dials on the instrument panel there to remind you just how much can go wrong? How can anyone ever understand the foreign language these people speak on their radios? Up here, how do you pull over to the side and look at the map to find the way home?
Over time, I became more comfortable, but one fear never went away. What would I do if something happened to my pilot and I was forced to fly the airplane? I hadn’t a clue. I did know that if something disastrous happened, the plane would definitely come down. Where and how it might do so kept me awake some nights.
Small airplanes have dual controls, just like the big guys, and people who occupy the right seat are encouraged to learn to fly well enough, in an emergency, to find an airport, land the plane–and walk away from it. The air-traffic controllers will, I’m told, ““talk you down,’’ and then you can write one of those real-life- drama stories and sell it for big bucks. So I took a course called a Pinch Hitter, an apt metaphor for a nonpilot flying in such circumstances. It’s like putting a sandlot baseball player up to bat at Yankee Stadium and telling him to hit a home run to win the game.
For my first flight lesson, I sat on the right, next to my instructor. As we began to taxi out, he said, ““You steer,’’ so I reached for the yoke. ““Not that way,’’ he corrected me. ““Hands in your lap. Use your feet.’’ Immediately I began to see that nothing I knew about driving a car would apply here. Soon after takeoff, I was admiring the view when I heard what I’ve come to believe is the most terrifying and exhilarating sentence in the English language. ““OK,’’ my coach said, ““it’s your airplane.''
That meant that though he was telling me what to do, I was now flying the plane. Oh, no, I thought; it’s too soon. We’ve just got here. I don’t know anything. I held my breath and waited for the airplane to drop out of the sky. At first we practiced picking out an object and flying toward it. In later lessons, we practiced turns, climbs and descents, and I learned some basic navigation skills. I encountered a variety of instruments, even a gadget on the ceiling, called an elevator trim, that theoretically helps you fly straight and level. In practice, I usually can’t find it without looking up, and the minute I do, the plane turns left and tries, like Huck Finn, to head out West for the territory.
Our lessons covered emergency procedures–first fly the airplane, then navigate, then communicate. I learned to set the radio to the emergency frequency and what to say (““Help,’’ for starters), and I memorized the emergency drill.
While many aspects of flying a small plane are fun, landings remain scary for me. We have a wide-angle, front-row view of coming down out of the sky; I’m busy with the throttle and the yoke and the rudders, and things get real complicated. (Just when I have the plane correctly lined up, I believe, a whimsical sprite moves the runway.) Somehow we always get back on the ground, usually because my instructor takes over the landing at the last minute and saves us. Our lessons have shown me that he has nerves of steel and extraordinary patience, and I’ve learned much about teaching from being taught by him.
Last week I landed the airplane by myself. ““That was your landing!’’ he shouted, and we whooped it up like two kids on the last day of school. My children, even my ex-paratrooper son, are impressed. My husband, who is now studying to be an instrument-rated pilot, is also delighted with my efforts. Our dinner-table conversation centers on aviation–he helps me practice radio communication, explains concepts I don’t understand and listens with interest to my ““what I did in the sky today’’ stories. He’s encouraged me to spread my wings. So I have my own logbook, and you’ll currently find me in ground school (at my community college) studying for my private pilot’s license. I hope my fiftysomething brain can absorb all I need to learn and that someday I’ll master landings, not to mention elevator trim.
But whatever happens, being able to fly–even just a little–changes the way you walk on the ground, I’ve discovered. I frequently glance at the sky, since it is now an important part of my life. I feel lighter, as if I’m not so firmly planted here. The roads I drive on seem so much more crowded and threatening than before, and I understand something of what the poet must have meant when he wrote that he had ““slipped the surly bonds of earth.’’ I have, too.
