First Time

It was spring break. I had gone to stay with Jeff, my roommate, at his family's 800-acre ranch in the Sierra foothills. We had been talking about this trip since the beginning of the fall semester, and both of us had been looking forward to it.

Jeff had told me that they had horses on the ranch and that there was plenty of rugged territory in the foothills we could explore on horseback. He also told me that there was rumored to be a treasure buried somewhere on the property. I thought it would be great fun to look for it. Jeff had expressed a similar sentiment, but lately, his enthusiasm had seemed to wane.

At dinner on the second day of our stay, Jeff's father plinked his water glass with his fork and upon getting our attention said, "How would you two feel about going flying with me in the Cessna in the morning?" I immediately said "Yes! Count me in!" But Jeff didn't say a word.

Mr. Sloan was a certified flight instructor, so it never occurred to me that it might not be safe.

* * *

The sun had not yet come up when I heard Mr. Sloan's voice. "Jeff, I want to go wheels up at eight, so you and Doug need to get up and get dressed." I popped out of bed, excited to get going. But Jeff just rolled over and pulled his pillow over his head.

At seven thirty-five, I was standing at the door of the hangar, waiting for Mr. Sloan and Jeff to get there. The hangar door was open slightly and I looked in to see what I could of the airplane. It stood like a proud metal bird painted white with blue trim.

I had always been fascinated by airplanes – actually by anything that flew –  airplanes, helicopters, birds, hot air balloons, gliders… So this small, blue and white Cessna was an icon of my unrequited passion. Someday I would get my pilot's license and now, to be getting to ride in a small plane like this had gotten me excited and anxiously anticipating a preview of the realization of my dreams.

The hangar itself was a pole barn with a large sliding door occupying one side. The walls were supported by long wooden poles, and the ceiling was comprised of corrugated steel panels laid over wooden trusses.

As I surveyed the interior of the structure, my eye was caught by a curious roundish blob on top of one of the roof supports. At first, I couldn't quite figure out what it was, but then it became apparent that the "blob" was an owl – a barn owl. 

"Tyto alba," I instinctively muttered. My university major was ornithology, so I knew the scientific name for most birds. "Hello there, my friend," I said.

Just then I was startled by Mr. Sloan's voice behind me. "You ready to go up in the tin kite?"

"In the what? Oh, you mean the plane," I said sheepishly.

Mr. Sloan chuckled and said, "C'mon in and watch as I do the preflight."

The "preflight" is an inspection every pilot does before they fly a plane. It entails checking all instruments and controls to make sure everything is working as it should. There is a preflight checklist that must be observed to certify the airworthiness of the airplane, and it leaves nothing to chance... well, almost nothing.

"Is this the first time you've flown in a small plane?" Mr. Sloan asked as he walked around the plane, surveying every surface.

"Yes," I replied. "I'm looking forward to it."

"I remember the first time I was ever in a small, private airplane. It was a doozy of a flight!" Mr. Sloan chuckled as he said this.

"I was about your age, and a friend of mine had a Cessna 172 that he was going to fly from Lawrence, Kansas, where we were going to school, to Dodge City where his folks lived. He asked me if I'd like to go along for the ride, and, of course, I said yes."

"Was it spring break?" I asked.

"No," Mr. Sloan laughed, "but my friend forgot to bring enough underwear when he packed for school, and he was flying home to get some more."

Addressing the puzzled look on my face, he continued, "When you get your pilot's license, you look for any excuse you can think of to go flying. Underwear is as good a reason as any."

"Anyway, we made the flight from Lawrence to Dodge City without an issue or incident – until we were ready to land."

"It turned out," he continued, "that on the day we flew into Dodge, there was a forty-five-knot wind blowing straight down the runway. We entered the pattern on the downwind leg, made our base turn, and then turned into the wind for the final approach."

"We descended, intending to land on the runway just beyond the numbers… but as we reached the numbers, we just hovered there, about five feet off the ground, barely making any forward progress, and definitely not touching down. The headwind was so strong that the plane would not set down. My friend, Alan, said that we needed to go around and try to land a second time. We did – go around that is – but again, as he attempted to land, we just hovered. We could not make the landing gear touch the runway."

"On our third attempt, before turning to the final leg of the pattern, Alan radioed the airport and told them of our predicament."

"Then as we attempted to set down for the third time, two men came running toward the plane from the tarmac, and when they got to the plane, they each grabbed a wing strut and pulled it down. They added just enough weight to the plane to overcome the lift of the wings and it finally settled down on the runway."

"Wow!" I exclaimed.

"Indeed," answered Mr. Sloan. "Imagine that being your first experience in a small single-engine aircraft! And now you know why I called this plane a tin kite. In a strong wind, it'll fly just like a kite, no engine required."

Just then Jeff came into the hangar. He looked like he had just gotten up. His hair was disheveled and his shirt was partially untucked. His demeanor was sullen and his face was scowling.

"Are you ready to go up, son?" Mr. Sloan asked, and without waiting for a reply, he added, "Doug and I just finished the preflight."

"Do we have to do this, Dad? I'm really not in the mood."

"C'mon, it'll be good for you. Once you get back in the saddle, you'll be amazed at how good you'll feel."

Mr. Sloan's pep-talk seemed slightly disingenuous, and Jeff wasn't buying it.

* * *

When we boarded the airplane, I got in first and took the left rear passenger seat. After I sat down, Mr. Sloan gave me a headset so that I could participate in the front-seat conversations, and also to hear the communications with the air traffic controllers.

Communication with the air traffic controllers seemed very cryptic – like a foreign language. But it was fun to try and understand it.

Some of the front-seat conversation I heard came as a shock and was hard to listen to. It made me feel like I was eavesdropping, but it helped me understand why Jeff had been so morose.

"Shape up, Jeff," I heard Mr. Sloan say. "Pull yourself together. Just because your mother died of cancer, doesn't mean that you will. We caught yours at a very early stage and the doctor is very optimistic." But Jeff did not respond.

After that, we flew for about a half-hour with little conversation. Jeff continued to be sullen and distant. Then things took an unexpected turn.

"Jeff, listen to me! We're going to beat this thing! You're not going to die!"

As Mr. Sloan said this he reached down and turned off the plane's engine and pulled the key out of the ignition. "You're not going to die… unless you decide to kill us all. The controls are yours, Jeff. It's your choice. You've got the plane."

I couldn't believe what had just happened! I had seen Mr. Sloan turn off the plane's engine and remove the key. I felt like saying, "Hello?! Let's not do this right now, Ok? The plane is starting to lose altitude! We can't fly without an engine! Even I know that! Hello?!"

But I couldn't get any words to come out, and I just sat there, open-mouthed, in disbelief.

The nose of the plane had tilted downward so that it was obviously no longer maintaining level flight… and we were losing altitude.

As I was trying to fathom this turn of events, I noticed the altimeter said 3200 feet.

For an eternity, Jeff just sat there. 

2850 feet…

Though I'm not all that religious, I mentally started praying. "Oh, God…"

"Oh, God… Oh God… Oh shit!"

My life flashed in front of my eyes at least twice, then, I heard myself saying out loud, "Holy shit, Jeff! Do something!" 

Finally, at 1700 feet, Jeff took the yoke and began to fly the airplane.

Mr. Sloan said, "Ok, Jeff! Good! Now, you've just lost your engine. What do you do?"

"Basically, fly the airplane and look for a place to land," Jeff answered mechanically. "But we need to go through the checklist so that we don't forget anything."

Mr. Sloan said, "Yes, I'll read it off for you. Airspeed, 65 knots indicated airspeed?"

Jeff answered, "65 knots, check."

"Whew!" I silently breathed a sigh of relief. It was then that I realized that I had been clutching the arm rests of my seat in a death-grip, and I had to force my hands to let go of them.

1400 feet…

 - -

"Identify a landing field?" Mr. Sloan prompted.

There was no immediate answer. Jeff was looking all around the terrain below us.

"Look for wind-socks, Jeff. Look for tell-tale evidence of wind direction."

Jeff responded, "The smoke from that factory is heading due east. and those cows are all facing east. I'm pretty sure that the wind at ground-level is out of the west. I'm going to set down in that pasture, heading to the west."

"Identify landing field, check," Jeff declared.

Jeff's voice had a little buoyancy to it now. It was starting to lose it's mechanical rigidity. His focus on flying the airplane with no engine had given him something other than his self-pity to occupy his thoughts.

I was pleased to hear the change in Jeff's demeanor, and I was also very happy and grateful to hear that, at last, we had a plan to handle our engine "failure." But I was nevertheless quite annoyed that we were being forced, at great risk, to handle a fake emergency. But as the plane got lower and lower, the emergency seemed less and less fake. I realized that, again, I was white-knuckling the arm rests of my seat.

The two pilots continued through the checklist until both of them were satisfied that everything had been covered. "Watch your airspeed, son. Maintain 65 knots." Mr. Sloan cautioned. "If you stall the plane and go into a spin, it will be impossible to recover with no engine."

1300 feet…

1000 feet…

At about 900 feet of altitude, Jeff stated that he was entering the downwind leg. It was the downwind leg of an imaginary pattern around an imaginary runway, because of a pretend emergency. I was having trouble wrapping my brain around all of that.

Just as Jeff was turning from the base leg to the final approach of his make-believe runway, I saw the reading on the altimeter – 520 feet. It was at that moment that I saw Mr. Sloan put the key back in the ignition and start the engine.

"Good job, son. Let's head back."

Yesterday I never would have thought that those six words could sound like an angelic choir singing, "Halleluiah! Praise the Lord!" Yet, today, that is exactly what I heard.

Yesterday I never would have thought that I could be transfixed by the droning of a gasoline engine. Yet, today, that sound lifted me from the depths of despair to the heights of giddiness!

I was tremendously relieved to hear those six wonderful words accompanied by the beautiful hum of the engine… and I was very grateful that my body hadn't embarrassingly revealed my emotional state.

* * *

After we landed, Mr. Sloan asked me, "Well, Doug, what do you think about your first small airplane ride?"

I tried to be as diplomatic as possible and answered, "It certainly wasn't anything like what I had expected."

"I hope you realize that practicing an engine failure is a common exercise for pilots. Jeff's probably done it a half-dozen times. You have to be ready for any emergency that might arise, so you practice."

"I was never worried," I lied. "I knew you two knew what you were doing."

Taxiing from the runway back to the hangar seemed anticlimactic and I still had queasiness in the pit in my stomach from the near-death experience. As we pushed the Cessna back into the hangar I noticed that the barn owl was still on his perch. I found that this continuity was quite comforting, and I felt an innate bond with the creature. 

"Hello, my friend," I whispered. "It's good to see you again!" Then I added, to emphasize my gratitude, "Really… really… good!"

The sight of the owl had my mind flashing back to everything I had experienced since I first saw him that morning. It had been an emotional rollercoaster, but with my feet back on terra firma, I was apparently no worse for the wear.

That being said, however, I don't think I will never see a barn owl again without thinking of the events of this day. Tyto alba will forever be a traumatic reminder of engine failure and panic… but ultimately, survival.

Jeff had successfully crossed the Rubicon and had come through with flying colors. I could see a positive change in his demeanor, and I knew he would be okay.

As for me? I think I'm going to be okay, as well. I faced my fears without succumbing to Mother Nature. Neither my bladder nor my bowels evacuated!

The events of the day will make a good story to tell my grandchildren some day. By then, I will surely have my pilot's license and will probably have taken them on their own first flight. I wonder if theirs will be as memorable as mine?

* * *

©️ Rusty Alderson, 2022