its still faster than driving....
to get your commercial pilots license, one of the things you have to do is complete a 250 mile flight. this means that you have to pick a spot 250 miles away from where you start, fly there and back. i did mine on saturday...or at least half of it. after some consultation with my boss, i decided to go to tangier's island in Virginia. its a small little strip on this teeny little island, known for the best crab cakes this side of the world. its a little further than 250nm, but hey what the hell.
saturday morning i take off out of TF Green in RI and head for long island. i got "cleared direct kennedy" which basically means i flew right to JFK for navigational purposes. from there i turned souther wester, crossed through jersey and into delaware. delware drops off into maryland. at this point, i was watching to see how much gas i had left. the needle was showing less than half a tank and i still had to go quite a ways further. i opted to land at Salisbury Airport in Maryland for some gas. my 250 mile trek was still valid, as this place was already 250nm away. so i flew in, had a fantastic landing, and gassed up. stretched my legs for a bit, walked around the field, and hopped back in the plane to head into virginia.
okay, master switch on, fuel pump on, mixture rich, throttle cracked 1/4 inch, and ignition. set to 1000rpm okay good. whats next on the checklist...okay avionics.....VVRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMmmmmmm pidda pidda pidda pidda pidda VVVRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm pidda pidda pidda pidddddddaaaaaa pppppiiiiiiidddddaaaaa puf.
shit.
basically my engine got taken over my some kind of demon that wouldnt let the damn thing run right. i started her back up and the same thing happened again, uncontrollable throttle. i could get it up to take off power, but it was reluctant to do so. now what? im in goddamn maryland. RI is three hours back the other way. shit.
i called the school up, told them what was going on, talked to our mechanic, his exacts words were "well, sounds pretty dead to me." great. zeke (boss) says he'll fly down inthe twin comanche (twin engine plane, lovingly referred to as the twinco) and be there around 6. it is 2pm at this point. great. i gotta kill some time.
im laying under the wing of my defunct airplane, head on the tire, getting eaten alive by bugs, when these three cool looking planes come in. one was a biplane and he stayed at the far end of the field, one was a regular cessna, and the last one was a bright red cessna 140. 140's are antique cessna's that i slightly have a love affair with. so i followed to plane to its hangar and the old guy pilot hops out. i waved, he waves and i yell "you just made my day! i got a broken airplane and i love 140's so thanks!" he says "wanna beer?"
ladies and gents, i now present to you ken lennox: airplane bum
ken is old, but probably younger than he looks, has the 140 and a Zodiac, a plane he built. he has a hangar for both of them which doubles as his own maintenance area. i opted for a soda seeing as how i might still fly later. he leads me through the hangar, out the other side where he parked his winnebago. now im not saying that he lives in this thing, but im not saying he doesnt either. he tosses me a root beer, cracks open a yiengling for himself and we sit on some chairs he's got in his hangar. some other airplane bums join us and soon im sitting in the middle of a bunch of old guys trading stories that are so absurd its tough to believe them.....until they show the scars to prove them. a few hours go by, the airplane bums start to wander off to tinker on their own planes, i bid ken farewell, wish him luck with this stinson restoration and head back to my airplane.
even getting stuck somewhere with flying isnt so bad.
zeke finally shows up at 6 as promised and checks out the airplane. of course now it runs fine, but he doesnt want to risk flying it, i sure as hell dont. we bring the plane to the hangar i was able to arrange for the night, say goodnight to her and walk away. we piled into the twinco and shoved off back to RI while the diamond (airplane i flew down) sat on the ground in maryland, waiting to get fixed. ill admit, watching the airfield shrink into the distance was a little sad. my poor little airplane.
coming back north was amazing. i just saw the ugly side of flying. i was put into a situation where other people have decided to chance it, they made the opposite decision i made. maybe they lived, but im sure some of them died as a result. i was happy with myself for not being stupid, but still, you feel kind of small. almost like a coward. just as im feeling weird about this whole scenario, happy with myself, but kind of let down, but happy to be alive, but wishing i was good enough to overcome this thing....just when im caught in this fog, the sun started glowing a deep red. the water below reflected back a thousand suns, ive seen this all before of course, but just like the first time, and just like the last time, it was the most beautiful thing ive ever seen. we landed back at tf green around 9:30pm, a full 8 hours after i landed in maryland. providence to maryland to providence, in 11 hours. its still faster than driving.
of course i have to go back to maryland to get the plane and fly her back to RI.
sweet.
saturday morning i take off out of TF Green in RI and head for long island. i got "cleared direct kennedy" which basically means i flew right to JFK for navigational purposes. from there i turned souther wester, crossed through jersey and into delaware. delware drops off into maryland. at this point, i was watching to see how much gas i had left. the needle was showing less than half a tank and i still had to go quite a ways further. i opted to land at Salisbury Airport in Maryland for some gas. my 250 mile trek was still valid, as this place was already 250nm away. so i flew in, had a fantastic landing, and gassed up. stretched my legs for a bit, walked around the field, and hopped back in the plane to head into virginia.
okay, master switch on, fuel pump on, mixture rich, throttle cracked 1/4 inch, and ignition. set to 1000rpm okay good. whats next on the checklist...okay avionics.....VVRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMmmmmmm pidda pidda pidda pidda pidda VVVRRRROOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm pidda pidda pidda pidddddddaaaaaa pppppiiiiiiidddddaaaaa puf.
shit.
basically my engine got taken over my some kind of demon that wouldnt let the damn thing run right. i started her back up and the same thing happened again, uncontrollable throttle. i could get it up to take off power, but it was reluctant to do so. now what? im in goddamn maryland. RI is three hours back the other way. shit.
i called the school up, told them what was going on, talked to our mechanic, his exacts words were "well, sounds pretty dead to me." great. zeke (boss) says he'll fly down inthe twin comanche (twin engine plane, lovingly referred to as the twinco) and be there around 6. it is 2pm at this point. great. i gotta kill some time.
im laying under the wing of my defunct airplane, head on the tire, getting eaten alive by bugs, when these three cool looking planes come in. one was a biplane and he stayed at the far end of the field, one was a regular cessna, and the last one was a bright red cessna 140. 140's are antique cessna's that i slightly have a love affair with. so i followed to plane to its hangar and the old guy pilot hops out. i waved, he waves and i yell "you just made my day! i got a broken airplane and i love 140's so thanks!" he says "wanna beer?"
ladies and gents, i now present to you ken lennox: airplane bum
ken is old, but probably younger than he looks, has the 140 and a Zodiac, a plane he built. he has a hangar for both of them which doubles as his own maintenance area. i opted for a soda seeing as how i might still fly later. he leads me through the hangar, out the other side where he parked his winnebago. now im not saying that he lives in this thing, but im not saying he doesnt either. he tosses me a root beer, cracks open a yiengling for himself and we sit on some chairs he's got in his hangar. some other airplane bums join us and soon im sitting in the middle of a bunch of old guys trading stories that are so absurd its tough to believe them.....until they show the scars to prove them. a few hours go by, the airplane bums start to wander off to tinker on their own planes, i bid ken farewell, wish him luck with this stinson restoration and head back to my airplane.
even getting stuck somewhere with flying isnt so bad.
zeke finally shows up at 6 as promised and checks out the airplane. of course now it runs fine, but he doesnt want to risk flying it, i sure as hell dont. we bring the plane to the hangar i was able to arrange for the night, say goodnight to her and walk away. we piled into the twinco and shoved off back to RI while the diamond (airplane i flew down) sat on the ground in maryland, waiting to get fixed. ill admit, watching the airfield shrink into the distance was a little sad. my poor little airplane.
coming back north was amazing. i just saw the ugly side of flying. i was put into a situation where other people have decided to chance it, they made the opposite decision i made. maybe they lived, but im sure some of them died as a result. i was happy with myself for not being stupid, but still, you feel kind of small. almost like a coward. just as im feeling weird about this whole scenario, happy with myself, but kind of let down, but happy to be alive, but wishing i was good enough to overcome this thing....just when im caught in this fog, the sun started glowing a deep red. the water below reflected back a thousand suns, ive seen this all before of course, but just like the first time, and just like the last time, it was the most beautiful thing ive ever seen. we landed back at tf green around 9:30pm, a full 8 hours after i landed in maryland. providence to maryland to providence, in 11 hours. its still faster than driving.
of course i have to go back to maryland to get the plane and fly her back to RI.
sweet.
posted by Chris Porter at 8:25 PM
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