eyesight had blown his opportunity to fly the fast jets that he had admired while growing up around Tucson.
Coming to know Dave, I began to realize that the yearning for flight, the passion for it, the joy it brings, is not limited to professional flying or to the fast, powerful machines. More often than not the true fulfillment of the wing is found on the grass strips and the dirt runways where birdsongs echo through aged hangars and fabric wings tug gently at carefully tied ropes.
Yet I met him not on an airfield but in the small church Ellie and I attended. As I came to know him, I could tell Big Dave admired me because, I suppose, I was what he had dreamed of becoming. And I was always amazed at his genius with things of a mechanical nature. There seemed to be nothing he didn't know about engines, metallurgy, and fabrication. He was highly skilled at both grease monkey mechanics and drafting table designing.
Unlike the top guns in the squadron, Dave was delighted to take a spin in the Cessna 140, and he immediately caught the fever. He had been flying for years, but not until then did he become consumed with the idea of having his own flying machine. A couple of weeks later he called and asked me to fly over to the small strip on his side of town. We landed, shut down, and looked around for him. Suddenly a Cessna 120, an aircraft almost exactly like mine, emerged from behind a hangar with Big Dave's grinning face behind the controls, his petite wife in the right seat. She saw us and shrugged her shoulders in a resigned smile. Their savings for his planned consulting business had taken a hit. At that moment I knew I had cultivated a true friend, had found a brother. What the top guns couldn't understand about me Big Dave did.
We made the most of the freedom our little taildraggers offered. We explored the desert Southwest, chasing coyotes and landing on dirt roads or sometimes just open areas. We flew about without knowledge of a destination. In what we began to refer to as 'treks,' we pointed the noses of our tiny Cessnas in whatever direction moved us and flew until we crossed something interesting or until night encroached. We camped in the desert and on riverbanks, caught fish for supper, slept under our wingsDave beneath the wing of his plane, me under mine, as if they were sacred spouses to whom we had pledged fidelity. We experienced what flying used to be, what it was meant to be. Through the marvel of those simple wings and that wide open country, we were delivered to the frontier of unbridled freedom.
But Dave got us into trouble once, and our salvation came from an unexpected source. He was leading while I flew tightly on his wing. We crossed a plateau and dropped down, following the contour of the land until we crossed over Lake Meade. It happened too quickly.
Suddenly I noticed a marina below us. The bobbing masts of a nest of sailboats shot beneath our wheels, not dangerously close, but far closer than the rules allow. I cautioned Big Dave on the radio, but he happily continued out over the water and I stuck to his wing, hoping that the boat people were airplane fans also. I was certain that the numbers on the sides of our planes were readable at this altitude. We pressed on across the lake to the dirt strip on the east side that we had spotted earlier in the day, which would be our campsite for the night.
Two weeks later the dreaded call came. It was an FAA investigator in Las Vegas. Was N3117N my plane? Was I flying it that day?
'Yessir.'
'Were you aware of the boats and marina?'
Silence.
'Yessir.' Mistake, I thought. Shouldn't have admitted that.
'Have you ever heard of FAR Part 91 concerning minimum altitudes?'
I swallowed hard.
'Yessir.'
'Do you have an explanation?'
'Well. .'
'Is there an airport there? Maybe you were in the process of taking off or landing?'
Silence.
'Yes. Yes, there was an airport and. . and we were on final approach for it.'
'Hm, hold on a minute.'
I heard the sound of a chart being unfolded. I was sweating bullets, 20 mike mikes.
'OK, I think I see it here. Is it Cottonwood Landing?'
'Yes, yessir, that's it, all right.'
'That's quite a final approach you had therefive or six miles!'
'Yessir, ha ha.'
I cleared my throat.
'OK, well, I'm satisfied. I think I can close this one out.'
Dave got the same call.
Whoever that FAA guy was, he was one of us: a brother. We owed him one, Big Dave and I did. And we raised our mugs to him and planned the next trek.
It was twenty years after I first soloed 95 Foxtrot that I experienced the greatest satisfaction of flight. It was not the result of fast, powerful maneuvering, or flying to exotic new lands, or exploring as the spirit led. It came when I passed the gift along to someone else.
A flier who builds a trophy aviation career but never passes on the light is losing out. True, not everyone is cut out to instruct, and some who do it shouldn't. Moreover, as a vocation, it's a slow way to starve. But I decided to do it as a sideline. I wanted to feel what it was like to teach someone to fly, not just to check him out in a new military plane or merely to administer proficiency training, like the instructors in our Guard unit. To start from scratch with a studentthat's what I had wanted for years. When I did so, I discovered a whole new way of relating to another human being and the revelation of seeing that person discover a new life and a new world. And I found the culmination of that experience when I passed the torch to a longtime, trusted friend.
'OK, Schneeflock. How does a wing lift your butt off the ground?'
'The Bernoulli Principle. When the velocity of a fluid increases, its static pressure decreases and, since air is a fluid, the resultant low-pressure area over the top of the wing sucks the wing up to fill the void. The fuselage is attached to the wing, and my ass is attached to the fuselage, therefore I fly. Now, if you're finally satisfied with my aerodynamic wisdom, can we go work on prowess?'
It was near dusk and a high overcast was developing. The winds had begun to die down. The conditions were right, but was the Schnee ready? The first few landings that day had been inconsistent; a pretty good one, then a not-so-hot one, and so on. But my coaching hadn't been needed, and that was the important thing. A couple of lessons earlier he had progressed to being able to land without my physical assistance on the controls, but I needed to wean him of verbal dependency.
'All right, I'm not gonna took this time. I mean it. I'm covering my eyes! You're on your own, buddy. We live or die togetherI'm depending on YOU this time!'
BLAM! Bounce. Bounce.
I looked up and removed my hands from my eyes. I pinched myself, then him. I grabbed his arm and shouted in mock jubilation.
'We're alive. WE'RE ALIVE, Schnee! Thank God!'
He glanced at me scornfully. But the tactic succeeded; it diffused some anxiety. He proceeded to make two additional independent landings. They were not pretty, but they were safe.
Again we turned onto final approach, and I decided that if this one was safe, I would release him. I would have done so yesterday but he didn't have the consistency. I haven't mentioned the S-word to him. He knows we're in the zone for it, but flight students don't like to think about that until the time comes. And it always comes before they think they're ready.
We ambled down final approach in the tiny Cessna 152 and made another bouncy but acceptable touchdown. As we rolled he moved the wing flap lever to the UP position and started to push in the throttle for another takeoff, but I put my hand over the throttle and closed it. The little engine idled back down and he shot a puzzled glance at me. I told him to turn off at the midfield intersection. I could sense his relaxation. He felt the ride was over. He could get back down to the office and wrap up a few loose ends before calling it a day. But as we cleared the runway I applied the brakes, stopped the Cessna and unlatched the door handle.
Before soloing a student the instructor always has the lingering feeling that maybe his student is not ready. Maybe I'm being premature about this. The man's life is in my judgmental hands. Perhaps another few landings or
