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“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your rescue.”
--Buddha
Flying
Darwin
Chapter One
Several Thousand Feet Over Gainesville, Florida
On
the eleventh day of August, a searing, sticky day, Trevis
Lindstrom watched the ground spinning in front of him like a
child’s pinwheel in a strong breeze. Descending through
3,000 feet he was bored. Neither the rotation nor the
g-forces bothered him; he’d spun the little Cessna training
aircraft thousands of times.
Trevis glanced at the silver dollar sized chronograph
imbedded in the instrument panel. Eleven-forty-five. Shit,
his interview with Jiffy Jets was scheduled for two-thirty.
This would have to be Tudie’s last maneuver.
He
wanted to make a good impression in the interview, wished
he’d gotten a haircut, and had taken the time to shop for a
new suit. If only he’d not been involved in that co-ed wet
t-shirt contest onboard the 727 charter to Cancun. Maybe
that wouldn’t have been so bad if the FAA Air Carrier
Inspector hadn’t found Trevis in bed with his daughter, all
of which added up to his being fired from his first real
shot at the airlines. And at this very moment, with the
world spinning around outside the windows, Trevis despised
the fact that he was back to flight instructing in
bug-smashers, a position aspiring airline pilots saw as the
bottom rung on the aeronautical ladder of success. More
than anything else, the twenty-nine-year old, sandy haired,
green eyed aviator wished that he was still with his ex-wife
Rachel, and that he wasn’t sitting next to Rache’s aunt
Tudie trying to teach her to fly.
The
altimeter on the instrument panel of the two-seat Cessna
indicated the trainer was dropping through 2,000 feet. The
swampy topography of Paine’s Prairie, southwest of
Gainesville, Florida, loomed closer every second. Tudie
Goldberg’s eyes were locked on the bug-speckled windscreen,
her arms stiff on the control wheel. As usual, the
68-year-old-platinum-blonde widow employed none of the spin
recovery techniques Trevis had spent the better part of a
hundred hours teaching her. Most students were capable of
mastering spins in several hours. If only she’d worry as
much about flaps, Bernoulli’s Principle, stalls, and angle
of attack as she did about designer jeans, maximizing mutual
funds, and her boyfriend Max, there might be hope for her.
Trevis let the airplane descend as low as he safely could,
then decided to wait just a couple more seconds. Maybe he
could scare Tudie into admitting she had no business
learning to fly. He hoped that she would realize that she’d
be more comfortable sitting in first class on a United 757,
sipping Bloody Marys on her way to visit the grandchildren
in New York. Better to let the professionals do the
driving.
At 1,700 feet, Trevis unfolded his arms and placed
his feet on the rudder pedals. With the engine at idle, the
cabin was relatively quiet except for the wind noise created
as the two seat Cessna rotated around and plummeted at
nearly several thousand feet per minute.
“Tudie, how would you say things are going here?”
No response.
This
was typical for her in the throes of a critical maneuver.
She became task saturated.
1,600 feet:
“That’s nothin’ but swamp down there, Tudie.”
No response.
“Gators and snakes. We’ll be six feet under in no time.”
1,500 feet:
Nothing.
“Look, Tudie, I need to level with you. I have
some concerns about your flying abilities.”
Nothing.
“Have you considered shuffle board? How about running for
Condo president. Just because you’re Rachel’s aunt doesn’t
mean that I can extend any special considerations your way.
I have to think about my professional integrity. You gotta
help me out here.” Tudie’s eyes, outlined in violet eye
shadow and thick mascara, were wide. Her wrinkled lips
pressed tight against each other, and the gold dangle
bracelets on her wrists gently bling-blinged against each
other.
This
couldn’t go on any longer. The moment had come to take
extreme measures. Trevis liked Tudie, and he thought that
he still loved her niece, but despite all of that, if she
truly wanted to learn to fly, and if he wanted to live, she
would have to rise to the same standards generally
considered a prerequisite of all aviators—she had to come to
her senses and get the airplane out of a spin. She was
going to have to learn a lesson, even if it was a painful
one, a lesson that Trevis learned first hand when he was a
student pilot.
1,400 feet:
“Tudie, I’m sorry about this.” With a tight,
closed fist, Trevis hauled back, broadcasting the impending
punch, closed his eyes, and let go, releasing enough energy
to get the old woman’s attention.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tudie yelled, dodging
Trevis’ punch.
Trevis’ fist made contact with the metal frame of Tudie’s
seat, sending a painful shock from rapidly firing neurons in
his now-broken fingers up into his brain. “FUCK!”
At the same time, Tudie’s gaze on the windscreen
didn’t falter. Her left hand, now white-knuckled, never
left the control yoke, while her right foot remained
planted, extending the rudder pedal. Yelling, “Asshole!”
Tudie Goldberg reeled back and bitch slapped Trevis with the
back side of her open right hand.
1,300 feet:
“Shit!” Trevis grabbed the control wheel and
tried to push forward to break the aerodynamic stall. It
was the first step in spin recovery. Nothing. The controls
were locked in place. The old woman was strong. “Goddamn
it, Tudie! Let go!”
1,200 feet:
“Not till you apologize.”
“I’m sorry for trying to hit you! Let go!”
“I’m an old woman, Trevis. I don’t have much to
lose.”
“What the hell do you want from me, Tudie!?”
Trevis could no longer make out any of the
distinct features on the ground. The colors landscaping the
windscreen blended into a greenish-brown, like a Cuisinart
on high speed, pureeing multicolored vegetables. He sensed
the horizon racing to envelop him, what skydivers called
ground rush. He hoped he’d be killed instantly. The spin
was tightening, speeding up, but time was slowing down. He
was sure that he was seeing an image of his father appearing
in the windscreen. He had to be hallucinating.
The Senior Captain Buck Lindstrom, adorned in freshly
pressed black jacket, four one-inch-wide gold stripes on his
sleeves, shiny brimmed cap tucked sternly under his arm, and
standing to the side of a freshly unearthed mound of orange
dirt. The Captain with a capital “C,” with his indignant
lips, and cocked crew cut head, seemed to be ordering the
uncomfortable mourners at Trevis’ grave to acknowledge, with
him, the inevitable end to his screwed-up son’s life.
It
was almost as if his father had been trying to lull him into
accepting this fate, to give himself over to it and quietly
let the Cessna disappear with a sick thud into the grave so
his father could cover up his embarrassment of a son.
Trevis wasn’t about to let that happen.
“I’m
sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
1,100 feet:
“You mean it?”
“Fine. Kill us!” Trevis said.
“You
shouldn’t give up so easily, darling,” Tudie said, letting
go of the controls. “You got it.”
At 1,000 feet the Cessna was about to become a lawn dart.
Trevis had to do something fast. The spin had gone too
far. G-forces were pulling Tudie and him to the left.
Trevis tried to punch forward on the control yoke to break
the aerodynamic stall that allowed the plane to spin. The
yoke wouldn’t move. It was locked in place. “What did you
do to this thing!?”
Tudie shook her head in the negative and shrugged.
He had to get the controls declutched from his side. “Grab
the wheel! Hang on tight.” Tudie did as ordered. Trevis
reached down between Tudie’s legs and yanked on the
seat-back adjustment knob. A loud snap and crack sounded as
the frame gave way and flipped backwards, toward the tail of
the aircraft. Tudie went from a full sitting position to
lying on her back, yelling “Wooo Hooo,” as she went. Her
side of the control yoke ripped away from the instrument
panel, leaving her lying face up, arms extended, her hands
grasping the detached wheel.
700 feet:
Trevis pushed his control yoke forward, kicked the left
rudder pedal, and slammed the throttle to full power.
600 feet:
The Cessna continued to spin, a dog ignoring commands from
its master.
500 feet:
Like a dazed person coming to his senses, the two-seat
responded to Trevis’ commands and stopped its spiral with
the nose still pointed at the swamp grass and scrubby trees
of Paine’s Prairie. Trevis had to pull out of the dive
gently to avoid another aerodynamic stall, the maneuver that
led into the spin in the first place.
300 feet:
With the minimum amount of pressure necessary, he eased the
controls toward his belly. The largest Cypress tree in the
middle of a hardwood hammock loomed closer. Close enough to
touch.
100 feet:
The nose rose up toward the horizon and the airplane started
to level out, but not before the little blue and white
trainer’s fixed wheels crashed through the upper branches of
the tree. Trevis felt his sphincter pucker. He had to hold
the control pressures in place, waiting for the laws of
physics to do their thing, or not. They’d crash or fly.
Whatever happened now was out of his control.
The propeller whined and sliced, straining to bite into good
air and pull the Cessna away from the ground. The nose of
pointed above the horizon but they continued to settle
toward the grass and water moccasins. Come on, baby.
The airspeed increased to 55 knots. Trevis figured he
was fifteen feet above disaster, the ground sliding by the
side windows. They were level now, flying in the very
lowest range of controllability. Tree branches snapped and
scraped against the bottom of the fuselage.
Trevis felt the tension in his fingers gripping the control
wheel. Relax, you’re gonna make it. He
sneaked a peak out his side window. A big gator thrashed
its tail and bolted under water. Trevis eased back a little
more on the control yoke as the airspeed indicator read 60
knots. The Cessna climbed, one hundred feet per minute.
They would live. He breathed again.
The airplane ascended to 1,500 feet. Trevis noticed his
hands and legs shaking. A surge of emotion rose in him,
bursting out through his eyes in a deluge of tears. He
turned to look at Tudie, still lying on her back, arms
extended straight out, clutching the control yoke. “I
think my hand is broken,” he said.
“Can we do one more of those?” she said.
© 2007 Wing'd It
GarryKravit@aol.com
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